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STUDIES 



IN THE 

EARLY HISTORY 

OF THE 



FOX RIVER VALLEY 



BY 

GEORGE GARY 



^ 



TIMES PUBLISHING COMPANY 

OSHKOSH, WISCONSIN 
PUBLISHERS 



THE U8RAKY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Cortee Receiver 

JAN. 6 1902 

OOI»VHIQHT ENTRY 

No. 



COPY B. 









\ * 



Introductory Note. 



Much of the matter of this work was prepared several years 
ago. it was rewritten, and additions made to it, two years ago for 
publication as a serial in The Oshkosh Times. The text of those 
papers has been revised to some extent and notes added for pub- 
lication in the present form. 

The history of the first thirty years of American occupation of 
the Fox River Valley would be interesting and even romantic in 
some respects, but the plan of this work was to bring the history 
down only to the time of American occupation. The author has 
been tempted a little beyond that limit, principally by the scheme 
mentioned in the last chapter to establish in Wisconsin and the 
northern peninsula of Michigan, an Indian territory from which 
white settlers should be excluded, mainly to show how little idea 
the men of eighty years ago had of the marvelous results which 
were to follow within three-quarters of a century. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ORIGN OK SOME HISTORICAL ERRORS. 

When the general historian, intent upon the more 
important, or more dramatic, events of his narrative, 
attempts in one or two brief sentences, to summarize the 
less prominent local events which, though a part, are 
not deemed of the important part of his history, he is 
quite liable to fall into error. 

Especially is this the case, when a knowledge of the 
geography of the locality, where the events thus 
described, occurred, is necessary to a correct under- 
standing of the authorities, from which the history of 
such events is drawn. Few historical events of equal 
importance, have suffered more from this cause, than 
the earliest labors of the Jesuit missionaries, in north- 
eastern Wisconsin. 

More than half a century ago Bancroft, in the third 
volume of his history of the United States, after describ- 
ing the removal of Marquette and his flock of Hurons 



2 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

from Lake Superior to a point near Mackinaw in 1671 
under the marginal date of 1672, wrote as follows : 

"The countries south of the village founded by Mar- 
quette were explored by Allouez and Dablon, who bore 
the cross through eastern Wisconsin and the north of 
Illinois, visiting the Mascoutms and Kickapoos on the 
Milwaukee and Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan. 
The young men of the latter tribe were intent on an 
excursion against the Sioux, and prayed to the mis- 
sionaries to give them the victory. After finishing the 
circuit, Allouez, fearless of danger, extended his rambles 

to the cabins of the Foxes, on the river which bears their 
name." 

Bancroft gave the Jesuit Relations as his authority. 

These flowing sentences of Bancroft seemed to be a 
trap for local historians. Prof. I. A. Lapham, in his 
little work on "Wisconsin," published in Milwaukee 
(second edition) in 1846. after mentioning the supposed 
canoe voyage of Nicholas Perrot, from Green Bav to 
Chicago, in 1670, says: "Two years afterward the same 
voyage was undertaken by Allouez and Dablon. They 
stopped at the mouth of the Milwaukee river, then occu- 
oied by Mascoutin and Kickapoo Indians.'' He prob- 
\bly had access to no other authority but Bancroft, on 
the subject. Gen. W. R. Smith, the official historian of 
Wisconsin, the first and third volumes of whose "Docu- 
mentary History of Wisconsin'' were published by the 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 3 

state in 1854. in his preliminary or first chapter, changes 
the language of Bancroft sufficiently to add one error, 
saying, after mentioning the location of Marquette and 
the Hurons at Point St. Ignace; "The countries south of 
this were explored by Allouez and Dablon, who bore the 
cross through eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illi- 
nois, visiting the Mascputins and Kickapoos on the 

Milwaukee and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michi- 
gan, and extending their journev to the. Foxes, on the 

river of that name, fearless of danger and indefatigable 

in religious zeal." 

Hon. Moses M. Strong, in the preliminary chapter 
of his "History of Wisconsin Territory," adds a little to 
the statement. He says: "The cross was borne by 
Allouez and Dablon, through eastern Wisconsin and 
the north of Illinois, among the Mascoutins and Kicka- 
poos on the Milwaukee and the Miamis at the head of 
Lake Michigan, as well as the Foxes on the river which 
bears their name, audi which, in their language was the 
\\ an-ke-sha." The Fox river of Waukesha is a small 
stream which rises northwest of Milwaukee, running 
south through the counties of Waukesha, Racine and 
Kenosha, in Wisconsin, passes into Illinois, where it 
forms a branch of the Illinois river. 

Every statement of fact, in the sentences quoted is 
an error. 

Allouez and Dablon did not bear the cross through 



4 Early History oj ike Fox River Valley. 

eastern Wisconsin, nor the north of Illinois; they did not 
visit Milwaukee; the Mascoutins and Kickapoos were 
not there, but on the upper Fox river of Green Bay; the 
Foxes were not on the river which bears their name, but 
on the Wolf river; the Miamis visited by them were 
some bands of that tribe, who, driven from their homes 
by the Sioux, had taken refuge with the Mascoutins on 
the Fox, where they prayed to the missionaries to give 
them the victory over their enemies; Allouez visited the 
Foxes alone, and before he visited the Mascoutins; and 
all this occurred in 1670, instead of 1672. These state- 
ments will be verified hereafter. 

The curious thing about the matter is. that all these 
historians immediately after the statements quoted, 
when describing the voyage of Marquette and Joliet, to 
the Mississippi, were aware that the Mascoutins, Kicka- 
poos and some Miamis were located on the upper Fox 
river; that Bancroft, in connection with his account, 
published a copy of a map attached to the Jesuit Rela- 
tions of 1670-71, which showed their location on the 
Fox and that of the Foxes (Outagamis) on the Wolf 
river, and that Smith himself translated the Relations of 
both Allouez and Dablon, in the extracts from the Jesuit 
Regions, published in the third volume of his "Docu- 
mentary History of Wisconsin." 

A11 illustration of the danger of error on the part of 
the general historian, who attempts to summarize local 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 5 

details, is found in the most recent work, which treats of 
the early explorations of the Jesuits, on the Fox river. 
Speaking of the first trip of Allouez, up that river, the 
author of "Cartier to Frontenac" writes (p 200): "In 
April (1670), he ascended the Fox, and found Indians on 
Lake Winnebago mourning the losses they had expe- 
rienced in a recent attack by the Senecas. On the Wolf 
river, an affluent of the Fox, he founded another mis- 
sion, that of St. Mark, and for a while administered at 
both missions. In some of his further explorations he 
reached the head of the Wisconsin, and records that it 
led to the great river "Messisipi," six days off." 

Nothing is clearer, from the narrative of Allouez, 
than that he saw no Indians on Lake Winnebago; that 
the tribe whom he found mourning the loss of several 
families killed, or carried off by the Senecas, were the 
Outagamis (Foxes), among whom he founded the mis- 
sion of St. Mark, on the Wolf river; that the other mis- 
sion founded by him at that time, was among the Mas- 
coutins on the Fox river, among whom and their "Miami 
guests, it was at that time, that he heard of the great 
river "Messisipi" six days off. 

In his valuable work, "Discovery and Exploration 
of the Mississippi Valley," published in 1852, Dr. John 
Gilmary Shea concluded that it was certain that Nicolet 
reached the Wisconsin river (Introductory chapter p. 
xxi). Shea was doubtless misled by his want of accurate 



6 Eariy History of the Fox River Vahey. 

knowledge of the geography of the Fox and Wisconsin 
rivers. In relation to the visit of Allouez to the Mas- 
coutins, he says (p xxv) : "To reach them, he traversed 
the lake or marsh at the head of the Wisconsin, for they 
lay on the river." "It was," says he, "a beautiful river, 
running southwest without any rapid." "It leads," he 
says further on, "to the great river Messisipi, which is 
only six days sail from here. Thus had Allouez at last 
reached the waters of the Mississippi, as Nicollet had 
done thirty years before. There was now no difficulty in 
reaching it; an easier way lay open than that from 
Chagoimagon." 

Father Dablon wished himself to visit the spot, and 
in company with Allouez he returned to Green Bay, and 
as early as September of the same year, both were at the 
Mascoutins. It is now generally agreed by the later his- 
torians, that the point reached by Nicollet, from which 
he turned south from the river, was the same place that 
Allouez and Dablon visited in 1670. (See "Carder to 
FrontenacA p 152). 

The words of Allouez "running southwest," (trans- 
lated by Smith "It flows to the southwest,") probably 
tended to mislead Shea, not considering the distance to 
the Wisconsin and the impossibility of reaching it, in the 
time that Allouez voyaged on the beautiful river he 
describes, after he left the river on which he found the 
Oufragamis. or from want of knowledge of the country, 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. y 

not knowing what river that was, concluded that the 
river "running southwest" must be the Wisconsin. 
When he translated Marquette's narrative, which is in 
the same volume, nothing but ignorance of the geog- 
raphy of the rivers could have prevented him from at 
once seeing that the village of the Mascoutins, described 
by Allouez and Marquette, was on the Fox river, and 
not on the Wisconsin. Some writers since, misled by 
the authority of Shea, have represented Allouez as hav- 
ing visited the Wisconsin. 

Another fruitful source of error and confusion, as to 
the location of the Mascoutins. is found in the narrative 
of Marquette, as published. When about to leave the 
Mascoutins. to proceed into the unknown regions which 
lay beyond, the narrative says: "We knew that there 
was. three leagues from the Mascoutins, a river empty- 
ing into the Mississippi." The whole passage goes far to 
show that the "three leagues" is a mistake, for he con- 
tinues : "We know that the point of the compass we 
were to hold to reach it, was the west-southwest; but the 
way is so cut up by marshes and little lakes, that it is easy 
to go astray, especially as the river leading to it is so 
covered with wild oats that you hardly discover the 
channel. Hence we had good need of our two guides, 
who led us safely to a portage of 2,700 paces, and helped 
us to transport our canoes to enter this river, after which 
they returned, leaving us alone in an unknown country, 



c? Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

in the hands of Providence." Three leagues would be 
between seven and eight miles from the portage, in 
which there may have been marshes, but no lakes. 
Whether the mistake was a slip of the pen of the writer, 
or the mistake of some transcriber, or printer and proof 
reader, may never be known, but to those who have 
studied the subject, in the light of some familiarity with 
the Fox river, it is clear that, if Marquette wrote "three 
clays," or "thirty leagues," it would be much nearer the 
real distance. This will be made clear hereafter in the 
proper place. 

That Allouez had not reached the Wisconsin is 
proved, and that Nicolet had done so is rendered very 
improbable by the language of Marquette, who says of 
the village of the Mascoutins, "This is the limit of the 
discoveries made by the French, for they have not yet 
passed beyond it." 

That the mistake of Dr. Shea arose from want of 
accurate knowledge of the geography of the Fox River 
valley, is rendered more probable, by an article from his 
pen, on "The Indian Tribes of Wisconsin," in Volume 
TTT., of the collections of the Wisconsin State Historical 
society (1856), in which he says that in the Relations of 
1669-70, Allouez mentions the Kickapoos "as lying on 
the Wisconsin river four leagues from the town of the 
Mascoutins," (p 129), and says of the Mascoutins that 
"the Jesuits, on visiting Wisconsin, found them on Wolf 



Early J '/is lory of the Fox River Valley. g 

river, a stream emptying into Lake Winnebago." (p 
132). This would separate them by more than thirty 
leagues. 

So it has come to pass that writers, who do not con- 
sult original sources of information, or, who do consult 
original sources, without any adequate knowledge of the 
local geography, have continued to speak of the Mas- 
coutins, as on the Wisconsin, or, misled by the "three 
leagues" in Marquette's narrative, have placed them 
near to that river. Strong in his history of Wisconsin 
territory, conjectures that they were near the head of 
Buffalo lake, within a few miles of the portage. Bancroft, 
assuming naturally, that three leagues was the correct 
distance, draws a dramatic pen picture of Joliet and 
Marquette, with their companions, crossing the portage 
from the Pox to the Wisconsin with their canoes on their 
backs, on June 10, 1673, which was the day that they left 
the village of the Mascoutins, and was at least three and 
probably four days earlier than the date of their crossing 
the portage. 



CHAPTER II. 

EXPLORERS WHO PRECEDED THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 

The first white man who, so far as known, ever set 
his foot upon the soil of the territory afterwards known 
in our political history as the "Territory Northwest of 
the Ohio river," was a young Frenchman from Nor- 
mandy, whose name was Jean Nicolet. In what may be 
termed the romance of history, there is no chapter more 
romantic than that which recounts his wanderings and 
discoveries in the northwest. Yet, strange as it may 
appear, they were unknown to historians until the pub- 
lication of Dr. Shea's "Discovery and Exploration of the 
Mississippi River." in 1852, and it was not until [876 
that the years in which he made his remarkable voyage 
were settled. 

Tt seems a very strange tact that, though he was sent 
on his expedition by Champlain, the governor of "New 
France." and returned to the settlements of the French 
several months before the death of Champlain, the only 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. i 1 

account of his journey and discoveries which has been 
discovered is in the Relations of the Jesuit missionaries, 
who derived their information from him. These appear 
in the Relations of 1640 and 1643. 

Prof. C. W. Butterfield, of Madison, in a little work, 
entitled "History of the Discovery of the Northwest, by 
John Nicolet," published in 1881, has given an exhaus- 
tive account of Nicolet' s explorations, with full refer- 
ences to and extracts from the original authorities. His 
work and an article on Nicolet in "Wisconsin Historical 
Collections," vol. XL, p. 4, are the authorities princi- 
pally followed here. 

Nicolet is described as a young man of good charac- 
ter, endowed with a profound religious feeling and excel- 
lent memory. He arrived in this country in 1618, and 
was soon sent by Champlain, as he sent several other 
young men. to reside among the friendly Algonquin 
tribes, who inhabited the country east of Georgian bay. 
where they were to be trained in the language, manners, 
customs and habits of the Indians, that they might be 
competent afterward to act as advisers and interpreters 
in establishing friendly relations with other tribes, Nico- 
let lived among these savages, in his own cabin, follow- 
ing their way of living and becoming, in all except birth 
and color, one of them, nine or ten years. Doubtless he 
became expert in all woodcraft, and as well qualified as 
a white man could become to establish friendly relations 



12 Early History'oJ the Fox River Valley. 

and conduct negotiations with the distant tribes, among 
whom it Mas desired to establish the French influence. 

Champlain had himself penetrated to the shores of 
Georgian bay and to the Hurons, south of that bay. 

Reports had reached Champlain and the Jesuit 
fathers, who were now in the entire control of the work 
of Christianizing- the Indians in New France, of a tribe 
far to the west, of a different lineage from the tribes 
known to the French, who were reported to have come 
from the shores of a salt sea. somewhere far to the south- 
west. They were called "men of the sea" by the Algon- 
quins. It was also reported that the men of the sea were 
visited by another people without hair or beards, who 
made their journeys to the sea tribe in large canoes "on 
a great water." The French officials and missionaries 
thought this "great water" must be the sea between this 
continent and Asia. Some of the Indians who traded 
with the French, occasionally visited the sea tribe for 
] nirposes of trade, and, apparently, had seen some of the 
hairless traders who came by the "great water." From 
these reports, the French imagination conceived the idea 
that by reaching the great water a short route might be 
discovered to China and Japan. 

The hairless and beardless traders who visited the 
"men of the sea" were the Sioux from the Mississippi 
river. 

The "men of the sea" were the tribe known in his- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. rj 

torv as the W innebagos. (i) Some trouble had arisen 
and there was danger oi an outbreak of hostilities be- 
tween them and the Hurons. 

Champlain resolved to send an envoy to this distant 
tribe to establish peace between them and his friends, 
the Hurons, and to open relations of trade and amity 
between them and the French. NFicolet was selected for 
this mission. Another purpose doubtless, was to learn 
more of the "great water" of which so much had been 
heard, and what other tribes were in that remote region. 
To extend the influence and fur trade of the French, was 
an object in all the plans of Champlain. A great Indian 
empire in the new world, under the sovereignty of the 
king of France, was one of the dreams of the future, 
which he indulged. 

The mission of Nicolet would require great tact and 
courage and he was selected, probably, because he pos- 
sessed those qualities as well as full knowledge of the 
Indian character and skill in the Indian customs and 
languages. 

Tn 1634, some time in the summer, accompanied by 
seven Hurons, he pushed out into the waters of Fake 
Huron. At the "Sault St. Marie" he visited the "People 
of the Falls" (2) and stood — the first white man — upon 
the soil of the present state of Michigan. He visited 
many other tribes on his route, including the Menomo- 
nees, who still reside in Wisconsin, whose village was 



14 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

then at the mouth of the Menomonee river, at the boun- 
dary between Wisconsin and Michigan. He dispatched 
one of the Hurons as a messenger to announce his 
approach to the Winnebagos. The messenger was well 
received by them and some of their young men went 
out to meet him and escort him to their village at the 
mouth of the Fox river. 

Here, a curious scene was enacted. Nicolet clothed 
himself in a Mowing robe of Chinese damask, curiously 
embellished with flowers and birds of various hues, and 
with a pistol in each hand, fired into the ground as he 
went toward the great concourse of Indians, squaws and 
children assembled to see the strange visitor. The 
women and children, frightened at the man who "carried 
thunder in his hands,' 1 fled screaming from the place. 

The only conjecture, as to the reason of this strange 
attire and action, is that, possibly, Nicolet may have had 
some expectation that he had arrived at a place where he 
might meet mandarins from China, or some great men 
from the Orient. 

Four or five thousand people, of various tribes, 
assembled to see the stranger who had come so far to 
visit them. There was banqueting and feasting and 
Nicolet was treated with the ceremonious hospitality 
which was fitting toward the representative, for the time, 
of the power and majesty of the King of France. There 
were councils and much talk and the Winnebagos 



E&xiy History of the Foa River Valley. /J 

promised to keep the peace toward all the tribes east of 
them, a promise which they proceeded to break, almost 
as sooi'i as he was out of their sight, on his return. 

Having fulfilled the mission, with which he was 
charged by Cham plain, to the Winnebagos and their 
immediate neighbors, Nicolet ascended the Fox river, 
and, passing through Lake Winnebago, reached the vil- 
lage of the Mascoutins. We have no details from which 
can be determined how long he remained with this then 
powerful tribe. He seems to have received from them 
the impression that he was there, only three days distant 
from the "great water" which had been fondly imagined 
to be the sea that led to China and Japan; at least, that 
was what the Relation of Father Vimont in 1640 stated 
as the fact. Whether Vimont misunderstood Nicolet, 
or Nicolet misunderstood the Mascoutins, does not seem 
to be certain, but it is reasonably certain that he was 
about three days from the Wisconsin river. It has been 
considered singular that Nicolet, when so near the 
'great water," did not continue his journey in that direc- 
tion. But his mission was not one of discovery, but to 
establish friendly relations with the tribes at the west, to 
extend the influence of the French among them and 
open the way for the extension of the trade, in which the 
"Hundred Associates," who then controlled New 
France, were more interested than in very remote dis- 
coveries. It would be very strange, also, if Nicolet had 



6 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

not by that time heard enough from the natives to con- 
vince him, or, at least, to create a strong suspicion in 
his mind, that the "great water" was not a sea. It is 
probable that Nicolet was illiterate and could only ver- 
bally describe the discoveries which he made. Other- 
wise, it seems strange that there is no written report of 
his journey, made by himself. Whatever the reason may 
have been, he followed the river no further, but turned 
south to seek the numerous tribes of the Illinois Indians, 
whose habitations probably extended into Wisconsin at 
that time. He had probably learned enough about the 
Sioux to conclude that they were not mandarins from 
China, and that he would have no further use for his 
damask silk robe. He returned to the Winnebagos, and 
visited the Pottawatomies, their neighbors, who occu- 
pied the shore of the bay east of the Winnebagos and 
the islands at the entrance to Green Bay. Somewhere 
among these tribes he spent the winter, and returned to 
Canada in the spring of 103^. 

The first account of this trip of Nicolet being found 
in the Relations of 1040, led Shea to the conclusion that 
it was made in [639, and subsequent historians gave 
that as the date, until Benjamin Suite, the Canadian his- 
torian, by a careful study of the career of Nicolet, ascer- 
tained and suggested the proper date. 

Thus, it came to pass, that just one hundred years 
after the discovery of the mouth of the St. Lawrence 



Early History of Ihr. P~ox River Valley . f? 

river, by Cartier, and only fourteen years after the land- 
ing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, this intel- 
ligent and energetic young "voyageur" and interpreter 
became the first white man to look and tread upon the 
land now included in the states of Michigan and Wis- 
consin, and the first white man to look, and paddle his 
canoe, upon the waters of Lake Michigan, Green Bay 
and the Fox river. Had he written and published an 
account of his voyage at the time, his name would have 
come down to subsequent generations, with those of 
Marquette and Joliet, whose discoveries commenced 
where his ended. As the first white man who. alone, 
with only dusky savages for companions, penetrated the 
vast, unexplored wilderness, negotiated with the wild 
tribes at the Baye des Puants and feasted in amity with 
the chiefs of the Mascoutins, on the south bank of the 
Fox river, his name would have been honored and, 
probably, preserved in the names of counties, towns or 
cities, and taught, like those of Marquette and Joliet. to 
the children in our schools. 

Pierre d'Espril Sieur Radisson and his brother-in- 
law, Medard Chouart Sieur des Grosilliers. two adven- 
turous Frenchmen, were the next white visitors to the 
Fox River valley. In the Wisconsin Historical Collec- 
tions, vol. XL. ])]). 64-96, will be found extracts from 
the narrative of Radisson, who was the historian of their 
adventures, covering all that relates to their adventures 



/S Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

in Wisconsin, with a note which gives a general account 
of the nun. They were adventures of a higher class 
than the "Coureurs de bois," who soon afterward began 
to scour the wilderness, with a view to traffic in furs and 
escape from the restraints of civilization and law. 

How these two men transferred their allegiance from 
the French to the British flag and. afterward, back- 
again; how from their movements and suggestions while 
under the British flag, the foundations were laid of the 
great "Hudson Bay company," and many other things 
in their career are interesting topics, but not germane to 
the purpose of this work. 

In 1058. they formed a sort of wandering partner- 
ship, for the purpose "to travell and see countreys." 
Radisson's narrative, written in English, by a French 
man, not of the learned class, is so confused, with it: 
French idioms, omissions and orthographical oddities, 
that, to the ordinary reader, it is scarcely more intel- 
iigibie than the poetry of Chaucer. 

It appears that in the year 1658, they pushed west- 
ward from Georgian bay and visited the natives on the 
islands between that bay and Michigan. While with the 
Ottavvas on the Great Manitoulin, "embassadors" from 
the Pottawatomies, from the islands at the mouth of 
Green bay. urged them to visit that people, which they 
did. They remained with the Pottawatomies during the 
winter (1658-59), but give no account of their mode ot 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. ig 

life. There they met some visitors from the Mascoutins, 
"a faire proper nation; they are tall and bigg & very 
strong." hi the spring of 1659 they visited the Mas- 
coutins. Radisson says: "When we arrived there weare 
extraordinary banquets. There they never have seen 
men with beards, because they pull their haires as soon 
as it comes out; but much more astonished when they 
saw our arm,s especially our guns which they wor- 
shipped by blowing smoake of tobacco instead of sacri- 
fice. I will not insist much upon their way of living; for 
their ceremonys heere you will see a pattern." 

The Mascoutins told them of the Sioux, a strong 
nation with whom they are "in warres." The most im- 
portant part of the narrative is here quoted. 

"We were 4 moenths in our voyage without doing 
anything but goe from river to river. We mett several 
sorts of peop 1 e. We conversed with them, being a long 
time in allience with them. By the persuasion of some 
of them we went into ye great river that divides itself in 
2, where the hurrons with some Ottanake & the wild 
men that had warres with them had retired. There is 
not great difference in their language as we are told." 
This is followed by other statements which tend to siiow 
that these two adventurers visited the Mississippi river, 
fourteen years before the famous voyage of Jolie't and 
Marquette. 

Thev returned to Green Bav and to Sault St. Marie. 



20 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

The only motive of these men. apparently was "to be 
knowne with the remotest people." Further examina- 
tion and study of their journeyings would be very 
interesting, but does not belong to the subject of tins 
vv< >rk. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER II. 

( i ). The name by which the Algonquins called this 
tribe, which the Jesuit spelled "Ouinipigou," or "Ouini- 
bigoutz," was translated by the French. "Puants," which 
Smith roughly translates "Stinkards" and Shea trans- 
lates "The Foetid." In the Jesuit Relation of 1640, 
Father Vimont wrote, "Some Frenchmen call them the 
Nation of Stinkards, because the Algonquin word Ouini- 
peg signifies "stinking water." Now thev thus call the 
water of the sea: therefore these people call themselves 
"< hiinipigou." because they come from the shores of a 
sea, of which we have no knowledge; and consequently 
we must not call them the Nation of Stinkards, but the 
Nation of the Sea." III. Smith, Doc. Hist., Wis. ii. 
But the name "Puants" stuck to the Winnebagos, dur- 
ing the French occupation. Marquette, apparently, 
gives a similar explanation, Shea, Dis. & Ex. of the Mis- 
sissippi, io. But apparently, he knew nothing of the 
legend that they came from a salt sea and, being unable 
to find any salt springs, concluded that the name was 
given - '«>n account of the quantity of slime and mud 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 21 

there, constantly exhaling noisome vapors which cause 
the longest and loudest peals of thunder that I ever 
heard." (Ibid, n)." Augustin Grignon says that the 
name was given them, as expressive of their filthy habits; 
"Win-ne-pa-go," meaning "filthy," in the Menomonee 
tongue. (III. Wis., Hist. Coll., 286). Charlevoix 
understood that the name was expressive of their filthy 
habits. ( [bid. 285 note). 

(2). These were called by the French, "Sauteurs" 
or "Leapers." They were the Ojibways or Chippewas. 



CHAPTER III. 

FATHER CLAUDE ALLOUEZ, THE PIONEER MISSIONARY 
AND THE JESUIT MISSIONS. 

Jean Nicolet set out from Three Rivers, for the 
country of the Hurons, from which he was to commence 
his explorations in the west, in the summer of 1634, in 
company with two Jesuit fathers, who were going to the 
Hurons to establish missions among them. These peo- 
ple, congeneric to the powerful [roquois of the Five 
Nations, south of the St. Lawrence river and Lake 
< )ntario, seem to have been, much of the time, at war 
with those cousins of theirs. They were of a higher 
type than their Algonquin neighbors and Sagard, one of 
the Recollects, who preceded the Jesuits, as missionaries. 
in Canada, classed the Hurons as the Nobility of the 
\i 1 >ods. 

The missionaries, whom Nicolet accompanied, were 
successful in establishing permanent missions among the 
Hurons, where their work was more prosperous than 



Early History of the Fox River Valley, 23 

among the tribes of a lower type. The high hopes which 
followed the success of this work, were suddenly blasted, 
by an unexpected attack by a powerful war party of the 
Iroquois in the winter of [649. The invaders marched 
through the Huron count rw destroying the villages and 
driving the unprepared I furons before them and forcing 
them to flee, for safety, in various directions. Some went 
eastward, for the protection of their French friends and 
some fled to the wilderness. Bands of them were found, 
later, in the wilds of Wisconsin. As a nation the Hurons 
were broken up. As we have before seen, Radisson and 
his companion met some of them, in Wisconsin, ten 
years later. 

Idie principal authorities which will be followed, in 
relation to the movements and work of Father Allouez 
and the other Jesuit Fathers are Smith's translations 
from the Jesuit Relations, in the "Documentary History 
of Wisconsin," Vol. Ill, and Shea's "Discovery and 
Fxploration of the Mississippi Valley," which will be 
cited, when necessarv, as "Smith" and Shea" giving 
pages. 

Nol only the Hurons, but many of the Algonquins, 
from the country cast of Lake Huron, fled before the 
fury of the Iroquois, to regions farther west and north- 
west. Father Boucher, in the Relation of 1669-70, says 
of Lake Superior: "Its shores are fringed all around 
with Algonquin nations, where the fear of the Iroquois 



24 Early History of the Pox River Valley. 

has caused them to seek an asylum." In 1660 Father 
Boucher, the Provincial, met at Quebec, two French- 
men, who had passed the winter in the country far up 
Lake Superior (probably Radisson and Grosilliers), who 
had come down "from those upper countries with three 
hundred Algonquins, in sixty canoes, laden with furs, 
who had located '"at a beautiful river, large, wide, deep, 
resembling, they saw our great river St. Lawrence." 
Willi the canoes with which these men came down, 
returned Father Rene Menard. He was old and not 
strong. The last letter that he wrote, before his depar- 
ture, (given in full. Smith, p. 23), is a pathetic prediction 
that he would never return. With him eight Frenchmen 
went also, to the new country of those Algonquins. 
Among these people Menard labored nine months, with 
poor success, suffering great hardships from their bad 
treatment and scanty provisions. (1). Somewdiere, in 
the wilds of Wisconsin there was a band of Hurons, 
among whom were some Christians and Neophytes, who 
had been instructed in the faith, before their dispersion 
by the Iroquois, and Menard determined to seek them in 
the wilderness. Some of them had visited the place 
where he was 1 Keweenaw Bay) and the general direction 
to them was known. With some of these Hurons who 
had come up to traffic with the Algonquins, and one 
French companion, Menard started, June [3th, [661. 
The Hurons soon abandoned him, telling him that they 



Earlv History of the Fox River Vallev. 25 

would send young men out to meet him. Me and his 
French companion struggled on until about the iotli of 
August, when his companion, after crossing a long por- 
tage discovered that Father Menard was not following 
him. He turned back in search of the father, in wain. 
Whether lie was murdered by savages, or wandered from 
the way and perished of exposure and hunger is un- 
known. Hie account of Menard's end. in the Relations 
(Smith, pp. 24-32), shows how the disciples of Loyola 
were still imbued with the spirit which actuated Francis 
Xavier and the earlier Jesuit missionaries. 

Father Claude Allouez, the first missionary to reach 
and labor among the Indians, within the limits of Wis- 
consin, who had "waited at Montreal, a long time for 
some savages from these more distant upper nations, 
that he might go up with them to their own country" 
and make of it a Christian land, "embarked on the 8th 
of August, 1665, at Three Rivers, with six Frenchmen, 
in company with more than four hundred savages of 
divers nations" bound for Lake Superior. After a canoe 
voyage along the whole south coast of Lake Superior, 
Allouez says: "Finally, Ave arrived on the first day of 
October at Chagouamigong, for which Ave have for so 
lour;- a time looked forward." Here was a great Indian 
village at or near, where now is the city of Ashland. 
There was a population of "eight hundred men bearing 
arms," who planted corn and led a stationary life. Thev 



sb Early History of the Fox River Valley, 

were "collected from seven different nations who dwell 
in peace with each other, thus mingled together." It 
was selected for that reason, as the location for the new 
mission. The location chosen was between this and 
another large village, probably of the Ojibways (Chip- 
pewas). 

This was a great resort for Indians of all tribes, where 
the missionaries met savages from the Baye des Puants 
and from the distant tribes of the Illinois. 

This long digression from the topic of the Fox River 
Valley, will explain in some degree, the causes which led 
to the establishment of the missions of the Jesuit fathers 
in Wisconsin. 

Near to the point selected by Father Allouez was a 
village of Huron s who had formerly "formed a part of 
the flourishing Church of the Hurons." While at "the 
Mission of the Holy Ghost," as he named it. Father 
\11ouez met Pottawatomies from Lake Michigan, Sauks 
and Foxes (Ousakiouck and Outagamiouck), Indians 
from the Illinois tribes, Sioux (Nadouesiouck), who 
spoke a language unknown to him, and other tribes. 
(Smith, pp. 42-46). In the summer of 1667, Allouez 
returned to Quebec, to secure assistance in this great 
mission field. He remained but two days at Quebec 
and returned with Father Louis Nicholas and one lay 
brother. The next year, he again returned to Quebec 
with some Iroquois captives whom he had redeemed 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 2j 

from their captors, and returned with Father Claude 
Dablon who was sent to act as superior of the upper mis- 
sions. (Smith, p. 50). 

In 1669, Father James Marquette was sent from the 
principal mission, which was now established at Sault 
Ste. Marie, to take up the work of Allouez on Lake 
Superior, and Allouez was sent to establish another mis- 
sion at Green Bay. These three points seem to have 
been great market places, where many tribes assemb'ed. 
after the hunting- season, for traffic, perhaps also, for the 
fishing. (See Smith, p. 41). 

The journal of Father Allouez, translated entire by 
Smith (p. 57-75), gives very full details of his movements 
and work in the Fox River valley, until the following- 
summer. 

He set out from the Sault. with two companions, 
probably lay-brothers, who joined and worked with, and 
for, the missionaries, without compensation except such 
scanty subsistence as the fathers themselves had, and 
looked, as they did, for a more ample reward in a future 
life. It has been frequently stated and accepted as a 
fact, that Allouez started in company with two canoes of 
Pottawatomies. His language rather indicates that his 
interview with them, in which they solicited him to visit 
their country, was at some time prior to his embarkation 
for Green Bay. There is no indication of such compan- 
ionship during the voyage. The start was on the 3rd 



28 Early History of the Fox River Volley. 

day of November, 1669, very late in the season to under- 
take the hazardous journey. As might have been 
expected, they encountered stormy weather. The first 
night they passed under the lee of the islands, at the 
entrance to Lake Huron, where, he says, "the length of 
the voyage and the difficulties of the route in conse- 
quence of the lateness of the season, hastened us to have 
recourse to St. Francis Xavier, the patron of our mis- 
sion, by obliging me to celebrate the Holy Mass and my 
two companions to commune, on the day of the festival 
in his honor, and further to invoke his aid twice every 
day. by reciting his prayers." 

The second morning they awoke, covered with snow 
and found ice forming at the shore. They were obliged 
to keep their canoe off from the shore and wade in the 
water with their bare feet, to load it. They were de- 
tained six days at one time by adverse gales and, after 
much suffering from the cold and storms, almost reached 
their destination on the 29th and found their further 
passage blocked by the ice. That night a high wind 
broke up the ice and they reached "the place where the 
Frenchmen were" December 2nd, and their painful 
voyage was over. At some point on their passage they 
had found two Frenchmen with some savages. The 
next morning, December 3rd, 1669, Father Allouez 
celebrated the first mass which was ever heard at Green 
Bay, "at which the Frenchmen to the number of eight 
performed their devotions." 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 2<j 

Allouez bad but two companiens. It appears, there- 
fore, that there were, at least, six Frenchmen there 
before his arrival. Who were they? 

'Hie life of the colony of "New France" was the fur 
trade. The French were not there to hew down forests, 
clear up farms and establish permanent communities, as 
centers from which settlement, improvement and cul- 
tivation of the soil should spread in all directions. The 
English colonists, though there were plenty of them to 
take advantage of all opportunities for traffic with the 
natives, from which profits could be derived, were 
inspired by the greed for land, which has always been 
characteristic of their nation. (See Winsor's Cartier to 
Frontenac, p. 147). The fur trade was only a compara- 
tively temporary incident of the English colonization. 
With the French, this trade was the principal object. 
Permanent settlement and cultivation, away from the 
vicinity of the principal centers of the fur trade was 
frowned upon and discouraged. To extend the French 
influence and build up a great Indian empire, under the 
control and sovereignty of France, in which the forests 
and streams should be left to the fur bearing animals and 
their Indian hunters, was a dream of some of them. The 
Jesuits had indulged a different dream, the conversion 
of the savage tribes to Christianity, the building of mis- 
sions, including churches, schools, colleges and ware- 
houses, at the centers of Indian population, where the 



So Early History of the Pox River Valley. 

natives should be taught in religion and in such arts of 
civilization as were selected for them, all exclusively 
under the control of the marvelous "society of Jesus." 
It was claimed that their influence and scheming ruined 
the enterprise of the intrepid La Salle. They were at 
cross purposes wth Frontenac, who hated them. They 
were often accused of engaging in the fur trade them- 
selves, in violation of the mandates and orders of the 
King, which it seems, they did not deny, except as to the 
extent of their trade and the use made of the profits. 
(Parkman, Discovery of the Great West. pp. 36, 104). 
The efforts of the French government to control the fur 
trade and to restrain it within certain limits had demoral- 
ized the whole people of Canada (Cartier to Frontenac, 
p. 299). Criminations and recriminations of the differ- 
ent contending factions, for illicit trading, form a part 
of nearly the whole history of the French occupation of 
Canada. When Duluht returned to Quebec, after his 
famous visit to the upper waters of the Mississippi, he 
was arrested, for illegal trading at the west. 

Tn consequence of the restrictions attempted to be 
imposed, there had gradually grown up a class, known 
as "Coureurs de bois," a lawless class, who followed the 
Indians to the wilderness and added to the vices of 
savage life, the vices of civilization and became a kind of 
civilized barbarians. (See Parkman, Dis., etc., p. 76). 
Other effects of the attempted restraint are shown by 
the same authority. 



Early -History of the Fox River Valley. j/ 

Before Allouez embarked on this voyage to Green 
Bay, he had met two canoes of Pottawatomies who 
wished to take him to their country "not that I might 
instruct them, the) having no disposition to receive the 
faith, but to mollify some young Frenchmen who were 
among them for the purpose of trading", and who 
threatened and ill treated them." This, probably was 
not the first, and it was not the last time that Allouez 
found that these emissaries of the devil had preceded 
him among; the Indians, whom he visited. 

The Indians had taken up their winter quarters, 
when Allouez arrived at Green Bay and he found there, 
collected in one village, Ousaki (Sauks). Pouteauatamis 
(Pottawatomies), Outagami (Foxes), Ouenibigoutz 
(Winnebagos), to the number of about six hundred. 
There was another village of three hundred twenty 
miles from there, on the east shore of the bay. Allouez 
says also, that "in this bay, at a place they call Ouesta- 
tinong. twenty-five leagues from these there is a great 
nation named Outagami. and one day's journey from 
this, there are two others, Oumami and Makskoutong 
(Miamis and Mascoutins), a portion of all these people 
has had knowledge of our faith, at the Point of the Holy 
Ghost, where I instructed them; w r e shall do it more 
amply, with the help of Heaven." In the words "in this 
bay," Allouez must refer to the rivers emptying into it 
as included in that expression, for his first visit the fol- 



32 Early History of the Fox River Valley 

lowing spring was to the ( )utagamis, whom he found on 
the Wolf river, and any point on the hay itself, twenty- 
five leagues from the mixed village at the head of the 

bay, would be several days journey, instead of one, from 
the Oumami (Miamis) and Makskouteng (Mascoutins), 
who were <>n the upper Fox river and together, as will be 

shown hereafter. All the tribes had fields of corn. 
gourds, beans and tobacco, hut he had much trouble for 
the maintenance of himself and his companions, during 
the winter. lie says: "Scarcely have we found shelter, 
all our nourishment has been only Indian corn and 
acorns: the little of fish, which is only rarely seen, is very 
had." lie found the tribes there "more than commonly 
barbarous," with no skill in making the most necessary 
utensils. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER III. 

( 1 ). A recent writer states that the first mass ever 
said in Wisconsin, was said by Father Menard at this 
place. This is a mistake. The place was on Keweenaw 
bay (called by the Jesuits the hay of St. Theresa), which 
is in Michigan and was never within the territorial limits 
<>f Wisconsin. The first mass said in Wisconsin, was 
said bv Father Allouez. at Chesfoimasron, m r 66s. 



CHAPTER IV. 

EXPLOKAT ON OF THE FOX AND WOLF R1VFRS, 
BY A.LLOUEZ, A D , lt>70. 

The first written narrative of any explorations in the 
Fox River valley is in the journal of Allouez, referred to 
in the preceding chapter. His first care was to seek for 
the principal village of the Outagamis (Foxes), some of 
whom had been instructed by him at the mission of The 
Holy Ghost. The ice in the river at ( ireen Bay broke up 
on the [2th of April, and he embarked on the i6th, to 
seek them in their home in the wilderness. The narra- 
tive seems to indicate that he went no further than the 
rapids at 1 )e I 'ere on that day. He saw clouds of swans, 
bustards and ducks, which the Indians were in the habit 
of catching in nets. On the [7th, he went up the river, 
to which, as well as to the Bay and Lake Winnebago, he 
attempted to give the name of St. Francis Xavier. 
About four leagues (about ten miles) up the river, he 
found a village of the Saki (Sauks), who had a peculiar 



?J Earlv History oj the Per River Valley. 

method of fishing. 'They made a barricade, planting 
great stakes, two fathoms from the water in such a man- 
ner that there is, as it were, a bridge above for the fishers, 
who by the aid of a little bow-net easily take sturgeons 
and all other kinds of fish, which this pier stops. 
although the water does not cease to How between the 
stakes.'' On the 18th, he made the portage "which they 
call Kakaling.*' While the "sailors" drew the canoe 
through the rapids, he walked on the bank of the river, 
where he found apple trees and vine stocks in abundance. 

Tn the early days of American settlement, this place 
was universally known along the Fox river, as "the 
Cock-ado " accenting the first and speaking the second 
syllable very short. This corruption of the French pro 
nunciation of the name given by Allouez. though not so 
euphonious, is probably nearer to the original name than 
the modern "Kaukauna." 

On the 19th, the "sailors'' ascended the rapids by 
using poles, while the missionary walked to the portage 
called "( )ukocitiming," that is to say, "the highway." 
Probably this was the rapids at the "Grand Chute." at 
the present site of the city of Appleton. During the day 
they observed an eclipse o\ the sun, which lasted from 
mid-day till 2 o'clock, and covered nearly one-third of 
the bpdy of that luminary. Tn the evening they arrived 
"at the entrance of the Lake of the Puants." Of this 
lake Allouez savs : "It is about twelve leag'ues lone and 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. jj 

four wide," which, reducing the French leagues of two 
and four-tenths miles to miles, is surprisingly near to 
the actual dimensions. Probably it had been visited 
before and explored, to some extent, by some of the 
Frenchmen whom he found at the Bay. as it is clear that 
he must have had information from some other source 
than his own observations. Of the lake he says: "It is 
situated from north-north-east to south-south-west; it 
abounds in fish, but uninhabited on account of the 
Nadouecis. who are here dreaded." Why these Sioux 
were so dreaded at this lake we can only guess, (i). 

Allouez reached Lake Winnebago on the evening of 
April 19th having been three days from the rapids at 
De Pere — a distance of about thirty-two miles. On the 
20th, which was Sunday, after paddling "five or six 
leagues, in the lake," he landed and said mass. Six 
leagues would have carried him beyond the mouth of 
the Fox river, up which he intended to go. This first 
mass and first Christian religious service ever heard 
around the shores of Lake Winnebago, was probably 
said at some point on the shore of the lake, between the 
mouth of the river and the present North park, in the 
city of Oshkosh, or possibly, in what is now North pane, 
and the congregation were three or four Frenchmen, 
who were with him. It was before the hour of noon, or 
commenced before that hour, as the saying of mass is 
never commenced between 12 o'clock, noon, and 12 
o'clock, midnight 



j 6 Early History of the. Fox River Valley. 

They entered the river, probably, early in the after 
noon of the 20th, and passing through a lake of "wild 
oats," by which name the wild rice of the marshes was 
known among the French, at the "foot" of which they 
found the junction of the Fox and Wolf rivers. This 
description of the head of Lake Butte des Morts as the 
"foot'' of the lake, is one of the inaccuracies of Allouez, 
of which a more mischievous example will be noticed 
hereafter. The Outagamis, whom he had set out to 
rind first, were somewhere on the east bank of the Wolf 
and they proceeded up that river which, he says, "comes 
from a lake where we saw two wild turkeys perched on a 
tree, male and female, exactly like those of France; the 
same size, same color, same cry." Wild fowl were in 
great abundance, on the river and lakes, attracted then: 
by the wild rice. 

Allouez says: "The twenty-fourth, after many turn- 
ings and windings in the different lakes and rivers, we 
arrived at the village of the Outagamis." 

The people flocked in crowds, to see the "Manitou," 
who had come to their country. They assigned and con- 
ducted Allouez and his companions to a cabin and 
treated them with respect. 

This tribe had been driven from their home some- 
where in the southeast, by the Iroquois. (2). They 
differed from the Algonquin tribes whom Allouez knew, 



Early History of the Fox River Valley, 37 

in some respects, but they could understand him. They 
were numerous, having- over four hundred warriors. 
Their women and children were very numerous, as the 
sin of polygamy, which was an obstacle to Ins work 
nearly everywhere, prevailed among them very exten- 
sively. They seem to have been rather more provident 
than most of the Algonquins, but were in bad repute, as 
"penurious avaricious, thieving, choleric and quarrel- 
some," They were at war with the Sioux, but did not 
make war on the Iroquois, though often killed by them, 
for the reason that the Outagamis had no canoes. It 
was these Indians, and not Indians on Lake Winnebago, 
as erroneously stated in '"Carrier to Fronteuac," who 
were mourning the defeat in the month of March, of six 
lodges of their tribe, who were at the head of Lake 
Michigan, but two days' journey from Green Bay. by 
eighteen Iroquois of the Seneca tribe. ( )nly six warriors 
were at their camp, the others being away on the hunt. 
The six were killed and thirty women carried away cap- 
tives. The Senecas were conducted to their camp by 
two Iroquois slaves of the Pottawatomies. 

Here also, Allouez found that two of the wandering 
French traders had been before him and the natives had 
received a bad impression of the French, on account of 
the bad conduct of these men among them. On the 
26th. the old men visited the camp of the father to pro- 
pose that he dwell near them to protect them. They 



jS Eariv History of the Fox Rnjer Valley. 

thought that he could restore their captive women. The 
whole colloquy is interesting and pathetic. That even- 
ing four Miamis arrived to offer consolation in their 
affliction, and for their comfort brought three scalps and 
a half dried arm of the Iroquois, to the relations of those 

who had been killed bv the Senecas. 
» 

These people had a strong palisaded fort, around 
which their bark cabins were erected. It would be 
interesting, though not of great historical importance, if 
the exact location of their village, at that time, could be 
determined. Not very many years later they were down 
on the Fox river and figured conspicuously in the subse- 
quent history of the Fox River valley. 

There are no special features of their location, given 
by Allouez, except that the soil was black and produc- 
tive, a search for which might assist in determining the 
location. It can, probably, be only approximately de- 
termined, from the data we have. 

In the Relations of 1670-71 Father Dablon says: 
" \t the beginning of the Relation of the Outaouacs will 
be found a map, which represents the lakes, the rivers 
and the lands, over which are established the missions of 
this country. It has been drawn by two fathers, suffi- 
ciently intelligent, very curious, very exact, who have 
been unwilling to put anything on it which they have 
not seen with their own eyes. v Allouez was one of the 
two, because things and places are represented on it, 



<-arw ntsiorv or the Fox River Valie) . j<p 

which none of the fathers except Allouez had ever seen. 
A copy of this map was published in the third volume of 
the earl)- editions of Bancroft's history. 1 ater historians 
have ignored it because a revised copy of it was 
attached to the Relations of 1672. This revised map is 
in "Carrier to Front-enac," pp. 208-9. On these maps no 
attempt is made to represent "the turnings and wind- 
ings" of the Wolf River; it is represented as coming 
nearly straight from the north. The Outagami mission 
is marked by a cross on the east bank of the river. But 
one stream is represented as entering; the Wolf from the 
west, and my inference is that Allouez saw but one. 
Tin's must lie the Waupaca river, which is represented 
as some distance below the Outagami mission. The 
Tittle Wolf river, which is the next to enter the main 
Wolf from the west, is a stream of such magnitude that 
it would have been shown on the maps, if seen, and 
would have been seen, if Allouez had passed it. This 
gives strong reason for believing that the village of the 
Outagamis was below the month of the Little Wolf. 

Allouez's information the winter preceding this visit 
was that it was twenty-five leagues from Green Bay and 
one day's journey from the Miamis and Mascotttins. 
But the Miamis who came to solace the mourning Outa- 
gamis with Iroquois scalps, while he was there came two 
days' journey for that purpose. 

Allouez was, from the afternoon of April 20th, to 



40 Earlv History of the Box River Valley. 

some time on the 24th. reaching them from Lake Win- 
nebago. But in April, shortly after the March thaw and 
the breaking up of the ice. the Wolf, above Lake Pov- 
gan, would be full and overflowing its banks and the 
current so strong that the progress of a canoe would be 
very slow. There is reason to believe, also, that Allouez 
went out of his way, cither ascending or descending the 
\A oh. FTe had been up then- but once, before the maps, 
before mentioned, were made; and if he put on them 
only what he had seen, they paddled to the west end of 
Lake Poygan and ten or twelve miles out of their direct 
course. For on these maps a stream is represented com- 
ing into Lake Poygan from the west, which is, undoub- 
tedly, W'iilow creek. Probably he had no one with him 
who had. i.M er ascended the Wolf and. in hunting for the 
entrance to the river from Lake Poygan (which is not 
easy to find by one who does not know where it is), they 
went to and perhaps up Willow creek. 

The next visit of Allouez to the Outagamis was 
made in February. 1671. over snow and ice across the 
country, from Green Bay. To reach them, he travelled 
twenty-four leagues, being six days on the journey. 
('Smith, p. 97). Twenty-four leagues would be nearly 
sixty miles, considerably farther than the distance to the 
present site of New London and. much farther than to 
any point above that place, on the river, which he could 
possibly have reached in his canoe voyage, in the prevL 



Early History of the Fox Rivet Valtey, 4 r 

ons April. The trend of the river from below New Lon- 
don for a long distance up, is to the eastward approach- 
ing- much nearer to Green Bay. From a careful study 
of the subject, i conclude that the location of the village 
of the Outagamis was below Xew London and judging 
from the topography of the country along the river, in 
that vicinity, probably in the town of Mukwa, in Wau- 
paca county. (3). 



XOI ES TO CHAPTLR LV. 

(;). In ilennapin's narrative, while describing his 
descent of the Fox river, with Duluht, in the fall <>l" [680, 
he says: "We passed four lakes, two pretty large, on 
the banks of which the Miamis formerly resided." The 
two "pretty large" lakes were, doubtless, Lakes Winne- 
bago and Butte des Morts. Allouez, as we shall soon 
see. found the Miamis with the Aiascoutins farther up 
the river, to whom they had tied for refuge from the fury 
1 >f the Sioux. My inference is. that they had been driven 
from the region of Lake Winnebago, by the Sioux; that 
their former habitation had been there; and that for that 
reason the Sioux were so much feared there that it was 
uninhabited in 1670. 

(2). When the Foxes invaded Detroit, in 1712, they 
are said to have asserted that all that country belonged 
to them. There seems to have been a tradition that they 
had formerly lived in the vicinity of Niagara Falls. 



4 2 Ear iv History of the Fox River Valley; 

(3). In a communication to The Oshkosh Times, of 
November 30th, 1898. Mr. P. F. Meyers, of Weyau- 
wega, Wis., gives an interesting description of an 
ancient Indian camp, or village, of which the relics were 
found by him, on the west side of the Wolf river, in the 
town of Mukwa and directly opposite across the river 
from the pond where I conjectured the Outagami vil- 
lage to have been. His view is that Allouez, in the 
twistings and windings of the river might have been 
mistaken as to which side he landed on and that the 
place described by him mav have been the Outagami vil- 
lage. But when Allouez visited the village in February, 
167 1, after a six days tramp through the snow he could 
not have crossed the river without knowing it. Besides, 
the village described by Mr. Meyers was located on a 
high barren sand plain, now grown up to Norway and 
Jack pine, while Allouez describes the soil at the Outa- 
gami village as a black soil and very productive. All 
the Jesuit maps locate the village on the east side of the 
river. 

Among the relics described by Mr. Meyers are 
quantities of broken pottery. The low-down Algon- 
quin tribes in Wisconsin had not much pottery and 
would be very careful of what they had. I am inclined 
to think that where much broken pottery is found in the 
relics of an Indian village, it indicates a violent destruc- 
tion of the village by an invading foe. The discovery of 



Early History of the Pox River Vahey. 43 

Mr. Meyers is interesting, but I think it could not have 
been the site of the Outagami village visited by Father 
Allouez. 



CHAPTER V. 

ALLOUEZ AND DABLON VISIT THE MASCOUTINS, KICK \ 
POOS AND MIAMIS, A. D, 1670. 

Father Allouez left the village of the Outagamis at 
the end of his visit to them, described in the preceding 
chapter on the 27th of April. 1670. He gives no details 
of the descent of the Wolf. He says: "The 29th. we 
entered the river which leads to the Machekoutench 
called Asista Ectacronnons, Fire Nation, by the Hurons. 
This river is very beautiful, without rapids or portages; 
it flows to the southwest." 

This unfortunate "to," instead of "from," as the real 
fact was. is another instance of the carelessness and inac- 
curacy of some of Allouez's expressions, of which calling 
the head of Lake Butte des Morts the "foot," was an 
illustration before noticed. It misled Shea, who prob- 
ably was not familiar with the geography of the region, 
to the conclusion that Allouez was speaking of the Wis- 
con sin, which does now to the southwest. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 4 5 

The narrative continues: "The 30th, having dis- 
embarked opposite the village and left our canoe at the 
water's edge, after a walk of a league, over beautiful 
prairies, we perceived the fort." Though no mention is 
made of it. it is probable that the location was well 
known and not improbable that some, or one of the men 
who accompanied Allouez, had visited the place before. 

The Indian^ received them with great hospitality. 
First they brought refreshments and greased the legs of 
the Frenchmen who were with him. This probably, was 
not a ceremony, but was to relax the muscles, cramped 
by the position in which they plied their paddles in the 
canoe. Afterward they prepared a feast, at which they 
with much ceremony and presentation of tobacco to the 
father, addressed him as a Manitou, praying him to take 
pity on them against their enemies, the Sioux and [ro- 
quois, who, they said, "eat us up." expressing their 
wishes for good crops and corn, good fishing and abate- 
ment of sickness and. famine among them. "At each 
wish, the old men. who were present, answered by a 
great "Ooh !" Allouez horrified b\ this ceremony 
hastened to explain to them that their prayers should he 
addressed to God and not to him, explaining however, 
"that nevertheless, wise men honored and willingly 
listened to the Blackrobe, who is hearkened to by the 
great God. and who is his interpreter, his officer and his 
servant/' 



{6 Earlv History et the Fox Rwer Valley . 

The Jesuits were called Black-robe or Black-gown, 

by the Indians, because their usual habit was a long 
black cassock. 

The same evening Allouez assembled the natives and 
made them presents of knives and hatchets, as he had 
done to the Outagamis, according to the usual custom 
of the missionaries, and made a long address to them. 
While among them, he explained to them "the articles 
of our Holy faith and the Commandments of God." 
Before leaving them, he had the consolation of seeing 
that they comprehended the principal of what he terms 
"our mysteries." 

Allouez found but few of the Miamis, who were 
domiciled there, the greater part of them being absent, 
on their spring hunt. He describes them as mild, 
affable, grave and slow of speech. 

Four leagues (about ten miles) from the Mascoutins, 
were the "Kickibou and Kitchigamick," who spoke the 
same dialect as the Mascoutins. On the ist of May, he 
visited and instructed them. He says of them : "These 
poor mountaineers are good beyond all that one could 
believe; they do not fail in having superstitions, and the 
polygamy ordinarily among savages." 

Allouez' description of the location of the Mascou- 
tin village, will be considered in the future discussion of 
its location. On the 6th of May, he left these people and 



Ear tv History of the Fox River Valley. 47 

returned to Green Bay, being three days on the passage. 
From the 6th to the 20th of May, Allouez labored 
among the tribes on the shores of the Bay and then 
returned to Sault St. Marie, where duty called him. 

Father Claude Dablon, the superintendent of the 
western missions, returned with him to Green Bay, 
where they arrived on the 6th day of September, 1670. 
They found trouble there, because of the conduct of the 
"natives" toward the traders, "ill treating them in deeds 
and words, pillaging and carrying away their merchan- 
dise in spite of them and conducting themselves toward 
them with insupportable insolence and indignities." It 
appears that the cause of the trouble was that some of 
the natives who had been to Montreal, with their furs, 
had been badly treated, as they thought, especially by 
some of the French soldiers. They had therefore organ- 
ized about forty of their young men into a company of 
soldiers, in imitation of the French, and had placed 
guards at the quarters of the Frenchmen among them, 
after the manner of the French soldiers, who had been 
stationed, as guards at their quarters at Montreal, or 
Three Rivers. The fathers appeased the factions as well 
as they could and called a council of the tribes there 
represented. When it was time to assemble two of these 
"soldiers" came to summon the fathers, with muskets on 
their shoulders and tomahawks stuck in their girdles in- 
stead of swords. The fathers had difficulty in restrain- 



48 Early History of the tax River Valtey. 

ing their mirth at the uncouth appearance of the sen- 
tries, who paraded in front of the cabin where the coun- 
cil was held. Mere, as everywhere, where Allouez had 
been before, the Indians expressed great satisfaction at 
seeing them and hearing the matters of the faith, which 
had been explained to them, and the old men promised 
to abate the "soldier" nuisance and charged it and the 
disorders attending it on the hot headed "young men," 
but denied that they had treated anybody as badly as the 
French soldiers had treated them. 

The principal purpose of the visit of Father Dablon, 
seems to have been to visit the tribes: Mascoutins, 
Miamis and Kickapoos, on the upper Fox. Probably 
the description which Allouez had given of those people 
and their country, and their comparatively settled sta- 
tionary life, had impressed him with the idea that it was 
a more than usually promising field for missionary work. 
Dablon was a polished scholarly writer and the beauties 
of natural scenery had a charm for him, which was lost 
on the rugged nature of Allouez. We have in the Rela- 
tion of Dablon (Smith pp. 86-96), the first full written 
description of the Fox River valley or of that portion of 
it which he visited, from which we can gather a fair idea 
of its condition and appearance, two and a quarter cen- 
turies ago. To him it had "something of the beauty of a 
terrestrial paradise." In the ascent of the rapids 
between Green Bay and Lake Winnebago, he experi- 



Early History of ih< fox River Valley. $g 

enced what many have experienced since, "thai the 
Hints, over which we must walk with naked feet to drag 
the canoes, are so sharp and so cutting, that one has all 
the trouble in the world to hold one's self steady againsi 
the great rushing of the waters." At the fall of these 
rapids, they found a stone standing, which at a little dis- 
tance, resembled the bust and face of a man, to which, 
as to an idol, the savages were accustomed to offer sacri- 
fices of tobacco, arrows, paintings, or other things, in 
gratitude for their safe ascent, or to propitiate the idol. 
to assure their safe descent, of the perilous rapids. 

Some writers, on topics of local history, have 
thought that this idol was at the rapids at Kaukauna. 
But the statement is that scarcely a day's journey from 
the head of Green Bar they found "three or fom 
leagues" of these rapids. Thankfulness of the natives, 
was for the safe ascent, and their prayers for a safe 
descent. Clearly by "fall of these rapids," Dablon meant 
the beginning of the three or four leagues of rapids. 
This would carry them above the rapid known as "the 
Grand Chute," at the present city of Appleton, and that 
is, probably, the place where the idol was found. In 
their iconoclastic zeal the missionaries caused the idol 
to be toppled over into the river. It is not impossible 
that some enthusiastic antiquary might yel find it there. 
Dablon was filled with enthusiasm over the beauty and 
advantages of the country through which he passed 



5° Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

'Tnore than twenty leagues,*' before reaching the Mas- 
coutins. It was then "all a prairie country, as far as the 
eye could reach."' in all directions, with only "small 
eminences" planted with groves. 

There were seen only elms, oaks and trees of a like 
nature, no timber from the bark of which cabins and 
canoes could be made. For this reason "these people 
knew not what it is to go on the water." and their cabins 
were made of rushes woven into mats. 

Great droves of wild cattle roamed the prairies, so 
that for the hunting they did not have to seperate in 
families, "as the savages of other countries do." Herds 
of buffalo also found here their pasturage. Along the 
lakes and rivers, great fields of "wild oats" (rice) 
attracted wild fowl in large numbers. Wild plums, 
apples and grapes were abundant. 

Domiciled with the Mascoutins, thev found, as 
Mlouez had in the spring, the Miamis, who had fled 
from the fury of the Sioux, all together numbering three 
thousand sou's, and each able to furnish four hundred 
warriors, for defence against the Iroquois, "who came 
even into these distant countries to seek them." 

The fathers arrived at the Mascoutin and Miami vil- 
lage on the [3th of September. 1670, and proceeded, the 
next morning, to commence their labors as Christian 
missionaries. To enforce their teachings, Allouez 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. si 

exhibited to the astonished natives, a picture of the gen 
era! judgment and explained to them the happiness of 
saints and the torments of the damned. It is not sur- 
prising that the natives "regarded with astonishment 
this picture, never having seen anything like it." The 
preaching and teaching were not interrupted, but were 
varied by a succession of feasts, to which the fathers 
were invited, but as Dablon informs us. "not so much to 
eat there, as to obtain, through our means, either health 
for their maladies, or good success in the chase and in 
their wars." At one of these feasts the Miami master of 
the feast addressed them as follows: "You have heard 
speak of the people whom they call Nadouessi; (the 
Sioux), they have eaten me to the bones and have not 
left a single one of my family in life; I must taste of their 
Mesh, as they have tasted of that of my relations. I am 
ready to set off going against them in war. but I despair 
of success, if you. who are the masters of life and death, 
are not favorable to me in this enterprise. To obtain the 
victory then, through your means, \ have made this 
feast." (i). So the Indians feasted them and the old 
men performed dances for their entertainment, "to the 
cadence of some very melodious airs, which thev Ming in 
good accord." 

While the fathers were delighted with the seeming 
avidity with which the natives listened to them and the 
great respect shown to them, it is manifest that it was 



j 2 Early History of the For River Vallev. 

all in expectation of some supernatural, or occult assist 
ance which they hoped for, in their wars, or in the chase. 

Although these incidents are related, without much 
distinguishing between the two nations who inhabited 
the village, it is evident that the Miami's, who are 
described by Father Da 1 n as the Lllinois. impressed 
him much more favorably than the Mascoutins, and he 
gives one whole chapter to a description of their peculi- 
arities. He found this people more civil in their man 
ners than any others and concluded that none were titter 
to receive the impressions of Christianity. Their chief 
was treated with more ceremony than those of the 
Algonquin tribes, with almost the formality of the court 
of some civilized prince surrounding him. Dablon's 
description of their superiority to the other savages is 
somewhat enthusiastic. They gave him a description 
of the great river of the vest, "the Mississippi," which 
he judged, discharged itself into "either the Vermillion 
sea, or that of Florida." The Vermillion sea. alluded to, 
was the gulf of California. He saw some warriors 
(probably of the Miamis), who had descended the river 
so far that they had seen men "shaped like the French. 
who cleaved the trees with large knives, some of whom 
had their houses on the water." Thev had been far 
enough down the Mississippi to come in contact with 
the Spanish settlers in the south. 

\11 the instruction which the missionaries could 



Early Historv of the Fox River Valley, jj 

give these people was apparently insufficient to eradicate 
from their minds the idea that the "black-robes" were 
endowed with some supernatural power. The prayer of 
the Miami to them for success in war with the Sioux, 
before related, was followed bv disclaimer of any such 
power and an explanation of the character and purposes 
of the missionaries, but with such claims of being inter- 
mediaries between men and the Deity and special mes- 
sengers of God, to bring them to a knowledge of His 
commandments and ways, that the idea still remained 
with them that these strange beings, whether Manitou, 
or Genii, could protect them and give them success, in 
their undertakings. Twelve or fifteen, who had come up 
from the real country of the Illinois to visit their kind- 
red, who were with the Mascoutins, on their departure 
lor their homes came and prayed the fathers in the pres- 
ence of a large concourse of the people, to conduct them 
happily to their country and preserve them from all bad 
adventures. Dablon says: "This was a tine opening 
which they gave us to make them know 1 lim. who is the 
great master of our lives, of whom we are only the ser- 
vants and the deputies, and to whom we would willingly 
address ourselves for the happy success of then- jour- 
ney." From this kind of discourse the ignorant savages 
had no reason to doubt that the requests oi the "servants 
and deputies," in their behalf would be surely efficacious 
arid effectual. They departed with a promise that they 



j 4 Ear fa History of the Fox River Valley. 

would publish the wonderful things that they had seen, 
not only through their own country, but among much 
more distant people: "and thus they parted with us, all 
proud to have spoken to Genii, as they said, and to have 
learned intelligence of the other world." 

There is an old adage,- that "familiarity breeds con- 
tempt." When one of the "black-robes" appeared 
among a tribe where none of them had been before, he 
was received as a Manitou. When he repudiated all 
claim to supernatural power, it was always with the 
claim that he was the ambassador of the God of whom he 
spoke, who ruled and controlled all things, and who 
listened to their prayers; that great and wise men 
approached Him through them, as his representatives 
among men. It is not surprising, therefore, that they 
continued to believe that, in some occult way, the black- 
robe could secure for them victory over their enemies, 
success in their hunting, good crops of corn and exemp- 
tion from pestilence and famine. There are indications, 
scattered through the Jesuit Relations, that the respect 
For, and confidence in the power of the missionaries had 
waned, among some of the tribes who had become more 
familiar with them. Witness the neglect, and almost, or 
quite, cruelty, with which the venerable Father Menard 
w as treated, by the savages with whom he went to 
Kewenaw bay and the cruel desertion of him, by the 
Hurons with whom he started through the wilderness, 



Early History oj the /■<>< kiver Valley. $3 

for their village. When the ferocious Iroquois laid waste 
their former homes and drove them to the south shore of 
Luke Superior for refuge against utter annihilation, it is 
not improbable that those tribes lost confidence in the 
p( »wer, or influence i >f the missionaries with their < rod. to 
secure protection for their friends. 



NOTES T( > CH VPTER V 



1 1 ). This is doubtless, the speech referred to b 
Bancroft, mentioned in the first chapter of this worl 
which lie assume* 1 , was made at the head of Lake Mich 
!.;;tii because he supposed that the Miamis were located 
there. 



CHAPTER VI. 

NICHOLAS PERROT— A CONGRESS OF NATIONS — ALLOUEZ 
AS A POLITICIAN. 

Among the eight Frenchmen, who performed their 
devotions at the first mass at Green Bay, on December 
3rd, r66c), probably Nicholas Perrot was included. He 
was for many years the most conspicuous figure among 
the "Voyageurs,' 1 who played so large a part in the his 
tory of the French occupation of the northwest. In 
addition to a clear head and an energetic character, lie 
had an accomplishment which most of the bushrangers, 
who preceded the missionaries nearly everywhere, did 
not possess, lie could read and write, and lie left, in 
manuscript, a memoir of his life and what he saw. This 
work was edited and published in 1804 by Father Tail- 
ban, a Jesuit priest. The fair authors of the unique and 
interesting little hook, entitled "'Historic Green Bay," 
with that work before them have given a pretty full and 
graphic account of Perrot's connection with the fur 



Early History of the Fox River Vallev. 57 

trade at that place, to which, and Parkman's "Discovery 
of the Great West," I am indebted for what is here said 
of him. 

In his youth he was an "engage" of tin 1 Jesuits. 
When about twenty-one years old he became one of the 
independent bushrangers, engaged in traffic with the 
savages in the western wilds. He spoke the Algonquin 
dialects fluently and had great influence among the 
Indians. 

About the time that Allouez left Green Bay on his 
first trip up the Fox, Perrot left there in charge of a fleet 
of thirty fur-laden canoes, bound for Montreal. In 1670. 
Talon, the Intendent of New France, ordered Daumonl 
de St. Lussen to search for copper mines on Lake 
Superior, and take possession of the whole count rv in 
the name oi the King of France. Perrot went with St. 
Lussen as his interpreter. St. Lussen wintered at the 
Manatoulin islands. Perrot sent to the northern tribes 
messages inviting them to meet St. Lussen at Sault Ste. 
Marie in the following spring, and then returned to 
Green Bay to induce the tribes in that vicinity to attend 
the proposed gathering of the nations. It is said that 
when he visited the Miamis they entertained him with a 
sham battle and an Indian ball game. Perrot must have 
visited them at the Mascoutin village where Allouez and 
Dablon found them. His discription of the regal state 
which surrounded the chief of the Miamis corroborates 



jS Early History of the For River Valley, 

that of Father Dablon. Charlevoix, knowing that the 
Miami's were a tribe of the Illinois, seems to have fallen 
into the same error in relation to Perrot that Bancroft 
did, in relation to Allouez and Dablon. and places this 
interview at Chicago, which has led many subsequent 
writers to state that Perrot made a canoe voyage from 
Green Bay to Chicago, in 1670. (See Parkman. Disc, 
etc.. p. 40, note). 

The project seems to have been that the chiefs of the 
various tribes should surrender the claim of sovereignty 
over their lands, to the King of France, in return for 
French protection and the advantages of trade. It does 
not appear that the chiefs of the Mascoutins, or Kicka- 
poos, attended the great council. The stately potentate 
who ruled over the Miamis, who perhaps, may have been 
recognized by this time by the Mascoutins as the head 
of their combined forces, was persuaded by the Potta- 
watomies that the trip would be too tedious for him. and 
a 11 owed them to represent him, at the council. In the 
spring, Perrot sailed from Green Bay, with an imposing 
fleet of canoes, for Sault St. Marie, where they arrived 
on the 5th of May, 167 1 . The wiley and irascible Foxes, 
who had conceived a hatred of the French (excepting 
Perrot and the missionaries), whether from a sober 
second thought or from the promptings of their usual 
treacherous nature, after going down to the Bay, turned 
back to their homes. 



Early History of the Box River Valley. $q 

St. Lussen was at the Sauit, with fifteen men, among 
whom was Louis Joliet, who will appear more conspic- 
uously hereafter. The representatives of the northern 
tribes toward Lake Superior were gathering in large 
numbers. 

On the 14th of June, 1 671, St. Lussen led his men, 
all armed and equipped, to a small hill near the village of 
the Sauteurs (the "people of the falls" of the earlier 
Relations and Ojibways and Chippewas of later history), 
and assembled with them were lour of the ''black- 
robes," all of the missionaries then in the western field, 
except Marquette, who was still at the upper mission of 
The Holy Ghost, at Chegoimagon. A large cross was 
erected, on which Father Dablon solemnly pronounced 
a blessing. A cedar post was erected near it, with a 
small plate thereon, engraved with the royal arms. The 
"Vexilla Regis" was sung at the erection of the cross 
and St. Lussen's followers sang the "Exaudiat." After 
a prayer for the King, by one of the fathers, St. Lussen 
advanced with a sword in one hand and elevating a clod 
of turf in the other, pompously took possession of the 
whole country, bounded by the seas on the north, west 
and south, 'Tn the name of the Most High, Mighty and 
Redoubted Monarch, Louis, Fourteenth of that name, 
Most Christian King of France and of Navarre." 

The Frenchmen fired their guns, shouting "Vive le 
Roi," and the assembled savages joined in the din with 
their savage yelps and exclamations. 



Oo Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

Then the meek, self-sacrificing, zealous and earnest 
missionary who had lived with and like the Indians for 
years in the endeavor to plant the seeds of Christianity 
in their untutored minds, who ignored danger and suf- 
fering and was at all times ready to face death itself, in 
the cause and service of his Master; who deemed no 
hardship too great, if through it he might reach the side 
of some dying Indian man, woman or child, and dispatch 
a soul to Paradise, by the application, surreptitiously or 
otherwise, of a few drops of water in the name of the 
Holy Trinity, was to exhibit another side of his, and of 
the Jesuit character. Allouez was, probably, better 
versed in the language of the natives than any other 
Frenchman present, except Perrot, and he made the 
oration of the occasion to them. The speech is too long 
for these pages. The curious may rind a close transla- 
tion of Father Dablon's report of it in Parkman's "Dis- 
covery of the Great West" (pages 42-45). In a strain of 
bombastic eloquence, which would have been absurd, 
addressed to intelligent auditors, and which one would 
think, must have brought merriment to the mind, if not 
to the lips of Perrot and other Frenchmen who could 
understand, him, he set forth to his dusky audience the 
glory, power and magnificence of the King. He told 
them that when the King went to war, "He is seen in 
the midst of his warriors, covered with the blood of his 
enemies, whom he has slain, in such numbers that he 



Earty History of ///,' I' ox River Valley. b i 

does not reckon them by the scalps, but by the streams 
of blood which he causes to How." "But now, nobody 
dares to make war on him. All the nations beyond the 
sea have submitted to him and begged humbly for 
peace." "All that is done in the world, is decided by 
him alone." Quotations from this curious address 
might be multiplied, in similar exaggerated terms, as to 
the riches, possessions and even houses of the King of 
France. Allouez knew the people he was speaking to, 
and, apparently framed his speech accordingly. He was 
a member of the "Society of Jesus," established by 
Loyola; a body oi men, carefully selected, educated in 
all the learning of their age as well as in theology, 
trained politicians and statesmen as well as priests, hav- 
ing no will or purpose except the will and purpose of 
their order, constituting a kingdom scattered through 
all kingdoms, controlled and directed in all things by an 
absolute authority, to which their vows exacted unques 
tionirig and implicit obedience, they were one of the 
most potent factors and constituted the most marvelous 
fact of the history of the last half of the sixteenth, and of 
the seventeenth centuries. They were often accused of 
holding the maxim, that "the end sanctities the means " 
Exempted by their papal charter from many of the rigid 
rules and observances which bound the monastic orders, 
little of their time was spent in pious meditations and 
reciting offices. They lived in no monastic seclusion, 



6s Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

but were in and of the world, subtle and active, with the 
one great object, to extend the power and influence of 
the Church, and of their order. Therefore, this exhibi 
Hon of the humble devoted missionary in the role of the 
politician. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE MISSIONS, 1 67 1-7 2-73 .— VOYAGE OF MARQUETTE 
AND JOETET TO THE MISSISSIPPI 

Before going to the grand council at the Sault. 
Allouez made a winter visit to the village of the Outa- 
garni s. Some of these people had been to the "French 
habitations" the previous summer and had received such 
treatment that they had formed a project to kill some of 
the French in revenge. Therefore, the traders at the 
Bay were afraid to go among them. They were numer- 
ous, being more than two hundred cabins, each contain- 
ing five or six, and some of them as many as ten families 
in a cabin. Father Dablon says of them: "Many other 
nations swell this one, or rather make of it a Babylon, 
by the licentiousness which there reigns as in its empire." 
Allouez started on the 20th day of February, 1671, and 
made his way twenty-four leagues, over snow and ice. 
to their village. He was six clays on this journey. He 
immediately began visiting from cabin to cabin, 



(~>4 Early History of the Fox River Vailcx 

"encouraging some by the hope of Paradise and intmii 
dating others by the fear of hell." The rebuffs and 
derision with which some received his instructions, and 
the horror he felt at entering the cabins of some of the 
chiefs who had eight or ten wives, did not dis- 
courage him. This rugged missionary must have 
had a wonderful facility of influencing the sav- 
age mind, for most of them soon began to listen 
to him and treat him with respect and even kindness. 
When he left them the old men promised that upon his 
coming again he would find a chapel, which they 
promised to erect. Father Allouez and Father Louis 
Andre, who had been appointed with him to the missions 
at and in the vicinity of the Bay of the Puants, deter- 
mined to establish the mission of St. Francis Xavier two 
leagues up the river, at the rapids afterward called the 
"Rapides des Peres." now the city of De Pere. There 
they erected a bark chapel and a cabin for themselves. 
They then divided the labor of their various missions. 
Father Andre working among the tribes around the bay 
shore, and Father Allouez going among the more 
remote tribes. The selection of the place for the chapel 
ai ! )e Pere was at a point where many tribes gathered 
for the fishing and hunting. Wild fowl and fish were 
sometimes taken in the same nets at the same time. At 
this place, as then described, a broad strip of prairie on 
each side of the river was backed bv woods of tall tim 



Early Hisidry of the Fox River Valley. 6 J 

ber, not very thick, in which bears, wild-cats and deer 
were found. The fishing device formerly described, of 
a barricade of stakes across the river, was used there. 

Father Andre did not shrink from perilous winter 
journeys either, [n December. 1671, he started on the 
ice to visit the nations on the west side of the Bay, and 
encountered perils and hardships, which none but a 
rugged man full of zeal would undertake. He spent 
most of the winter there and, finding the natives obdur- 
ate, he adopted a novel method of dealing with them. 
The}' were very fond of their children and he composed 
and taught the children to sing little canticles attacking 
the superstitions and practices of their fathers, selecting 
lively French airs for the music. 

Father Allouez continued his labors among the 
Outagamis and the tribes whom he found on the Fox 
river. Among the former he had succeeded in estab- 
lishing such a veneration for the sign of the cross that he 
erected a large cross in their village and the sign became 
in common use among them. A war party was made up 
to go against the Sioux and he told them the story of 
Constantine and the sign in the heavens. The warriors 
marked the cross on their shields and when they met 
their enemies made the sign of the cross and rushed into 
the combat with such vigor that the} were victorious. 
( )n their return they published to those whom they saw 



66 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

the efficacy of the sign, which had given them the vic- 
tory. 

In 1671, the mission of the Holy Ghost on Chegoi- 
magon Bay. Lake Superior, was abandoned and one 
hundred and sixty-four years passed before the solemn 
celebration of the mass was again heard at La Pointe. 
The government of Canada had made a treaty with the 
savage Iroquois, under which the Algonquin and Huron 
friends of the French were to be left unmolested by that 
warlike nation. Father Allouez explained to the Foxes, 
whom he found mourning the death of six of their war- 
riors and the capture of thirty of their women by the 
Iroquois of the Seneca tribe, that they had not been 
included in the protection of that treaty for the reason 
that the French at the time of the treaty knew nothing 
about them. 

The bands of the Algonquin tribes had mostly dis- 
persed from Chegoimagon to the milder region farther 
south, leaving Father Marquette at La Pointe, with only 
a few of those and the Huron village near there, for his 
field of labor. They were there near to another power- 
ful confederacy, as powerful and as warlike as their old 
enemies. They had succeeded in keeping the peace with 
the Sioux for several years, but now trouble arose 
between them. There had been murders and the tor- 
ture of captives on both sides. The Sioux returned to 
Father Marquette the presents they had received from 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. Oj 

the missionaries, preparatory to going on the war-path. 
It was time for the Hurons to make their escape from 
the impending storm. They removed in a body to Point 
St. Ignace, on the north shore of the straits of Mackinaw 
and Father Marquette accompanied them and remained 
there with them. 

Frontenac, the governor of Canada, determined to 
send an expedition to find and explore the great river 
Mississippi. For the purpose he selected Louis Joliet, a 
young merchant and fur trader, who was born at Que- 
bec and educated by the Jesuits. He was but twenty- 
eight years old. Father Marquette had met some of the 
Illinois Indians at La Pointe and, being favorably im- 
pressed with them, as Dablon had been with the Miamis 
on the Fox river, he had desired to go among them to 
establish missions. At La Pointe he had employed one 
of their young men to teach him their language. He 
was selected to accompany Joliet on his expedition. 

Joliet came to St. Ignace and on May 17th, 1673, 
with two canoes and five men and a supply of smoked 
meat and corn, they set out from that place, on their 
voyage. On their route they visited the Menomonee 
Indians, then located at the mouth of the Menomonee 
river, on the west shore of Green Bay. The Menomo- 
nees endeavored to dissuade them from the perilous 
voyage, with tales of the savage tribes and frightful 
demons, who were said to infest the great river. They 



68 Eariy History of the fox River Valley. 

passed Green Bay and paddled up the Fox river, where 
they found the country as beautiful and inviting as Dab- 
Ion had three years before. Marquette's narrative of the 
voyage is published in full in French and an English 
translation in Shea's "Discovery and Exploration of the 
Mississippi Valley." Tt is extremely interesting, but out- 
business now is only with the part which relates to the 
Fox River valley. No dates are given, nor much details 
until their arrival at the village of the Mascoutins and 
Miamis, which is so prominent a point in the history of 
the early explorations, heretofore described in these 
pages. They arrived there on June 7th, and found the 
Kickapoos there also. They remained until the morn- 
ing of June loth, when, with two Miami guides to con- 
duct them through the marshes and wild rice beds of 
Lakes Puckaway and Buffalo and the upper river, they 
launched out upon waters where they supposed white 
men had never before paddled a canoe. Probably Radis- 
son and Grosilliers had preceded them there fifteen years 
before, but the fact, if it was a fact, was unknown to 
them and had been useless in adding anything to the 
knowledge of the great river which had been derived 
from the natives. No further date is given, till their 
arrival at the mouth of the Wisconsin, on June 17th. 
Marquette was delighted to find a large white cross 
erected in the Alascoutin village, adorned with thank 
offerings of furs and skins, for their success in hunting. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 6p 

Allouez had planted it there. Marquette's description 
of the village and the maps of Marquette and Joliet oi 
their explorations will necessarily be considered in the 
next chapter, which will attempt to determine the exact 
location of this much mentioned and much visited vil- 
lage. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LOCATION OF THE VILLAGE OF THE MASCOUTINS. 

"Eureka!" Which being freely translated, means in 
this instance, that 1 am so confident that I have found it, 
that I propose to state the exact spot where, as 1 have no 
doubt, the village of the Mascoutins was located, and to 
give in pretty full detail, the reasons for my conclusion. 
The sources of information from which it is to be deter- 
mined, and which I rely upon to establish the location 
are three: First, the accounts of Allouez, Dablon and 
Marquette, of their visits to the place, including their 
descriptions of the location and surroundings. Second, 
the maps of the Jesuits attached to the Relations of 
[670-71 and 1671-72, the map of Marquette attached to 
his report and published with it by Shea, in "The Dis- 
covery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley," and 
the map presented or dedicated to Frontenac, by Joliet, 
to which may be added the map attached to Thevenot's 



tLanv riiswry or the Fox River T'atie\ . y r 

edition of Marquette. Third, the topography of the 
country along the south side of the Fox river. 

By the upsetting of his canoe, just above Montreal. 
Joliet lost all his manuscripts, books and papers, on his 
return from his voyage with Marquette. But for this 
unfortunate accident, it is not improbable that we should 
have some details of the voyage, which we do not have. 

It is now conceded by those who have examined the 
narrative of Allouez's visit to the Mascoutins. that the 
"three leagues," which Marquette gives, as the distance 
of the Mascoutins from the Wisconsin, is a mistake; that 
he wrote, or intended to write thirty leagues, or three 
days. Butterfield in the "Discovery of the Northwest. 
by John Nicollet," is of the opinion that the Mascoutin 
village was in Green Lake county, Wis. Secretary 
Thwaites, of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, in 
his charming little work, entitled "Historic Waterways." 
says, speaking of the Fox river between Berlin and 
Omro. "It was somewhere about here, nearer Berlin 
than Omro." but exactly where, no man now knoweth, 
that the ancient Indian 'nation' of the Mascoutins was 
located, over two centuries ago." 

The distance from the junction of the Fox and Wolf 
rivers to the Wisconsin portage, by the river, is ninety- 
eight miles, according to the surveys of the engineers of 
the Fox and Wisconsin improvement. Allouez entered 
the Fox at the junction of the rivers, on the 29th of 



J 2 Earn' History of the Fox River Vanev. 

April, 1670, and reached the Mascoutins some time on 
the 30th. if he had been on the river the whole of both 
days, he could not have reached within three leagues of 
the Wisconsin, nor much more than half that distance. 
But he did not spend so much time on that river. After 
reaching- the Mascoutin landing place he walked a 
league (Dablon calls it a small league), to the "fort." 
After greasing the legs of his boatmen, the natives 
brought them refreshments. After that they prepared a 
feast, at which there was much speech making and cere- 
mony by the chiefs, and a long response by the Father. 
After that Allouez assembled the natives in the evening 
and explained his mission and the mysteries of the faith 
to them. All this consumed much time and it is pretty 
certain that his arrival there was not later than the 
middle of the day. At what hour he entered the river on 
the 29th. there is no means of determining. At the most 
he was not more than a day and a half, ascending the 
river, and it might have been not much, if any. more 
than a half a day. At that season of the year the river 
would be high and the current strong. Twenty miles 
with a canoe would be a large day's work. My conclu- 
sion is, that the location of the village must be sought 
within thirty miles or thereabouts, of the junction of the 
two rivers. 

Allouez, always intent upon his work for the salva- 
tion of souls, does not give much time or space to 



Early History 0/ the Pox Rive) Vam \\ 73 

description of what he saw. His description of the vil- 
.age is very brief, lie says: "These people are estab- 
lished in a very tine place, where we see beautiful plains 
and level country as tar as the eve can reach." 

They informed him that there was navigation of only 
six davs. to reach the great river, the "Messisipi." The 
Kickapoos had a village four leagues from the Mascou-' 
tins, which he visited. They were probably located in a 
hilly or rolling region, as he speaks of them as "poor 
mountaineers." 

Father Dablon was a more enthusiastic admirer of 
the beauties of natural scenery. After passing the rapids 
o\ the lower Fox, he says: "We enter into the most 
beautiful country that can ever be seen, prairies on all 
sides, as far as the eve can reach, divided by a river 
which gently winds through them and on which to float, 
bv rowing, is to rest one's self. When we have arrived 
at this place, we have passed the forests and mountains: 
there are only small eminences planted with groves here 
and there." Fie describes the situation of the village as 
follows: "It is necessary to travel more than twenty 
leagues in this beautiful country, before we reach the 
'Fire Nation,' which is situated on a little rising ground, 
whence nothing but vast prairies are seen, on every side, 
with some groves in various parts and which nature 
seems to have produced, only for the delight of the eyes 
or for the necessities of man, who cannot do without 



77 Ear iv History of the Fox River Valley. 

wood." Dablon saw the country in September, when it 
was the most beautiful. The notables and part of the 
people, to do them honor, accompanied Dablon and 
Allouez to their canoes, "a small league," as he says, 
from their village. The ordinary French league was two 
and four-tenths miles. The short, or small league was 
about one and three-fourths miles. 

Marquette and Joliet reached the village of the Mas- 
coutins on the 7th of June, 1673. ^ s they approached 
it, Marquette "had the curiosity to drink the mineral 
waters of the river, which is not far from this town." His 
description of the place is as follows: "I felt no little 
pleasure in beholding the position of this town; the view 
is beautiful and very picturesque, for from the eminence 
on which it is perched, the eye discovers, on every side, 
prairies spreading away beyond its reach, interspersed 
with thickets or groves of lofty trees." The soil is repre- 
sented by all the Fathers as very productive. 

The Jesuit map of 167 1, of which a copy is given in 
the third volume of the earlier editions of Bancroft and 
also in "Historic Green Bay," represents the Fox river 
as coming to the junction with the Wolf from the south 
west, and represents the location of the Mascoutins at a 
distance up the Fox, which, according to the general 
scale of the map, might be something like twenty miles, 
more or less, from the junction of the two rivers. The 
Jesuit map of 1672, a copy of which may be found in 



Early History of the Pox River Vaiiey. 75 

"Cartier to Frontenac/ 5 pages 208-9. represents the 
location substantially the same. These are the earliesl 
maps which attempt to give any representation of the 
country around and contiguous to Lake Winnebago. 
Of course they were drawn only from the memory of 
Allouez and another of the Fathers, and they had no 
guide except the memory and possibly notes of Allouez 
and Dablon as to the Fox. as they were the only ones 
who had seen it. My comparison for distance is with, 
the represented length of Lake Winnebago, of which 
Allouez had a pretty accurate idea, as shown by his Rela- 
tion of his first trip, in April, 1670. 

The map of Marquette, published by Shea in the 
"Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley/' 
locates the Mascoutins about the same relative distance 
above the junction of the rivers. \t gives the course oi 
the Fox much less accurately than the maps before men- 
tioned, representing it ns coming to the junction from 
west-north-west for a considerable distance above the 
Mascoutins. 

The map published in France, as Marquette's, if not 
made by him, was evidently made after his famous 
voyage, bv some one who knew what he had seen as it 
represents the two small lakes. Puckaway and Buffalo. 
011 the upper Fo v , much more distinctly than the one 
published by Shea. There are very marked differences 
in the two, in the course laid down for the Fox. fn the 



7 6 Eariv History of the Fox River Valley. 

location of the Mascoutins, it agrees substantially with 
the maps of the Jesuit Relations. A copy is found in 
"Carrier to Frontenac," page 248. The map presentee 1 , 
to Frontenac, by Joliet. does not give the location of 
any missions or villages, but will be referred to later, for 
another purpose. The copy which I have, on a scale 
large enough to show small details, is in a work entitled 
"History of Northern Wisconsin." published at Chi- 
cago, in 1881. I have good reason to believe that it is 
an accurate copy. 

All of these maps and especially the maps of the 
Jesuit Relations, represent the chain of lakes above Lake 
Winnebago — Butte des Morts. Winneconne and Poy- 

gan — as an arm or dee]) bay of Lake Winnebago. 1 
attribute this to the fact that Allouez, the only one of the 
Fathers who had been through them, went there in 
April, when the rivers were high and the marshes along 
the short stretches of river between them were very full. 
giving the appearance of an almost continuous lake. 

There is further evidence in the narratives of the 
Fathers, that the location of the Mascoutins was not 
very far up the Fox. Allouez was informed by the Mas- 
coutins, or Miamis, that it was but six days' canoeing to 
the Mississippi river. Marquette and Joliet left the vil- 
lage on the morning of the 10th of June. They reached 
the Mississippi on the 17th. at what hour we do not 
know. Thev were therefore seven days and some frac 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. yj 

lion of the eighth in the voyage. They took two Miami 
guides to guide them through the marshes and wild rice 
beds of the upper Fox, where a stranger, without a pilot 
would then, as now, be in danger of often rinding himself 
in a "cul de sac." at the end of some bayou, which he had 
mistaken for the channel. On the Wisconsin they found, 
as main have since, seme difficulty in the navigation, 
on account of the sand bars. But from three to four 
days was probably ample time for the descent of that 
river. It has been made in two days. Secretary 
Thwaites with a companion made it, in a small skiff in 
less than four days, making short days, as he narrates 
in "Historic Waterways." ( i ). It seems pretty certain 
that Marquette, was at least three days in reaching the 
Wisconsin river. Dablon after passing the flinty rapids, 
at the fall of which they toppled the Lndian Idol into the 
river, enters upon the beautiful country through which 
he says, it is necessary to travel more than twenty 
leagues to reach the Mascoutins. Twenty leagues from 
that point would carry them above the village of Omro, 
in Winnebago county. 

From all this evidence, it is reasonably clear that if 
the location of the village of the Mascoutins is found, 
it must be looked for, not more and probably much less, 
than thirty miles from the junction of the Fox and Wolf 
rivers. The place was reached by walking two miles, 
more or less, from the landing place of the canoe; it was 



fi Eafiv Historv of the Fox River V alley. 

on elevated ground, from which the eye could see the 
surrounding country for a long distance in every direc- 
tion; it had a soil of great fertility, and should have near 
it, on the route to it, a mineral spring or springs. If a 
place is found which answers to all these particulars, it is 
probably the place. If but one place can be found, which 
corresponds essentially with these particulars, it is cer- 
tainly the place. 

In "Historic Waterways," Mr. Thwaites standing on 
the bank of the Fox at Sacramento, three or four miles 
below Berlin, speculates on the possibility that that place 
might have been the landing, from which Allouez 
walked a league over beautiful prairies to the "fort" of 
the Mascoutins. If he had walked south over the prairie 
a mile or more, he would have found himself on a ridge 
of land, sloping both to the north and south and rising 
higher toward the west. If he had followed that ridge 
toward the west, something more than a mile, perhaps 
half a mile more he would have found himself on a hill, 
which, for elevation and outlook would fully comply 
with the descriptions of the Jesuit Fathers, but he would 
also find himself standing on a broad pleateau of solid 
granite, which is now being worked into paving blocks 
for city streets. Toward the north he would find a sheer 
granite cliff, toward the vest a steep descent into the city 
of Berlin down a sandy hill and toward the south a more 
gradual descent. It is not such a spot as an Indian vil- 



Eany History of the Fox River Valley. 7 9 

lage was ever established upon. On that solid rock no 
palisade could be erected. Water which is essential to 
an Indian village would be too remote. If the Fathers 
had found a village on such a spot, they would not have 
been profuse in praise of the fertility of the soil and 
omitted any mention of the most prominent feature, the 
rocks. 

If a traveler on the Fox river should land at the vil- 
lage of Eureka and follow the highway from that village 
south, he would find that just south of the village the 
road crosses a narrow marsh by a deep fill or embank- 
ment several feet deep, without which the marsh would 
be impassable. Ascending the hill beyond the marsh, (a 
pretty steep ascent), about one mile from his landing 
place, if he turned to the right, by a highway turning 
west, at a right angle to the one by which he ascended, 
he would make the turn on the crest of a ridge, from 
which the first highway mentioned descends a long slope 
to the south to a low marshy ground about half a mile 
in width, from winch it ascends again to the beautiful 
prairie known, in the days of the early settlement, as 
Democrat prairie. Following the other highway to the 
west, nearly half a mile, he would find himself on an 
elevated plateau of very fertile land. Stepping a few feet 
to the south from the highway, he would stand on the 
highest point of this plateau. Looking back toward the 
east, down the rise of the ridge mentioned and turning- 



So Early History of the Pox River Vatcey. 

slowly around to the left, his eye would see a long reach 
of the Fox river below Eureka and then sweep across the 
low lands and marshes on the north side of the river, 
backed in the distance, by the level timber land which 
stretches away to the Wolf river and Lake Povgan. As 
he continued to turn toward the west, he would see the 
Fox river to the great bend just below Berlin, the marsh 
above Eureka, the prairie of Sacramento and. still turn- 
ing, the broad expanse of Democrat prairie, rolling and 
beautiful. When his eye reached south, south-east, if 
the day was clear, he might see the spires of the city of 
Ripon over ten miles away, in Fond du Lac count}'. 
Turning still farther toward the east, if the "little groves 
of timber" did not impede his vision, he would see the 
water and marsh of Rush lake, three miles away, "As 
far as the eve can reach," he would see, in every direction 
the panorama described by Allouez, Dablon and Mar- 
quette, excepting the changes made by the improve- 
ments of civilized man, which increase the utility but 
mar the beauty of the landscape. Before civilization had 
done its work in the vicinity, a canoe voyager who 
desired to reach that hill, would find where Eureka now 
is, the best canoe landing between the present site of 
Omro and Sacramento. Leaving his canoe there, one of 
the first objects which would attract his attention would 
have been springs strongly impregnated with mineral 
substances gushing from the bank, discoloring the grass 



Early History 0/ the Box River Valley. 



81 



and nauseous to the smell and taste. If he had read 
Marquette's report, lie would he reminded of the 
curiosity of the good Father, "to drink of the mineral 
waters which are near this town." After ascending the 
rather steep hank, he would have to make a detour to 
the left, to avoid the narrow marsh directly south of the 
landing". Doing this, he would ascend gradually to the 
crest of the ridge before mentioned, and following it up 
to the highest point, the view from which has been 
described, he would have walked about two miles from 
his landing; the league of Allouez and the small league 
of Dablon. Inspecting the surroundings of the sightly 
spot, a short distance to the north, he would have found 
a gradual slope, breaking off suddenly to a very steep 
descent of seventy-five feet, more or less, to the marsh 
below . To the west he would have found the same con- 
dition, with the descent not quite as steep as to the 
north. At this point the road to the west before spoken 
of, necessarily makes an an^ie of about forty-five degrees 
to the south-west to get down the steep declivity and 
avoid landing in a too wet marsh. From the summit, as 
from the whole length of the ridge the land descends to 
the south by a more gentle descent and is cultivated, 
down to the low 7 marshy land before mentioned, beyond 
which the land rises to the fine rolling Democrat prairie. 
A few rods Iron, the summit toward the south-west a 
large spring pours out a copious supply of pure water. 



82 Early History of the Fox River Vauey. 

It would be difficult to imagine a spot more exactly 
fitting in with the descriptions of the Fathers in every 
particular, even to the mineral waters of which Mar- 
quette drank. 

But the evidence is not yet closed. Marquette was a 
missionary intent on the missionary work and on the 
scheme which he had entertained for two years, of carry- 
ing the gospel to the tribes of the Illinois. Naturally he 
would spend the two days of their stay at this village in 
getting from the Miamis all the information that he 
could about those tribes and their country and would 
mark the location of the Mascoutin mission on his map. 
Joliet who could not talk with the Indians without an 
interpreter would naturally be more interested in the 
topography of the country and would investigate the 
surroundings, more than Marquette would. On his map. 
presented to Frontenac, Joliet does not attempt to give 
the location of the village, but does give the location of 
the region of country occupied by the Mascoutins. On 
his map is represented a small lake, with the outlet run- 
ning nearly north a short distance to the Fox river. 
There is but one such lake, with such an outlet, on the 
south side of that river. That is Rush lake, situated in 
Winnebago county. Contiguous to this lake, Joliet 
locates the country of the Mascoutins. It is three miles 
in a south-easterly direction from the summit of the 
eminence before described. The trapping grounds of 



Earty History of the Fox River Valley. 83 

the Mascoutins were around this lake and the Fox river. 
They hunted wild cattle and buffalo on Democrat 
prairie. Their fortified village and place of refuge, if 
pressed by their enemies, was at the place I have 
described, situated on the east half of Section 32, in 
Township 18 north, of Range 14. east, in the town of 
Rushford, Winnebago county, Wisconsin. The high- 
way described as going west is on the quarter line, 
between the north-east and south-east quarter sections, 
and the angle to descend the declivity to the south-west, 
is at the centre of the section. This is the only place 
south of the Fox river, which fulfills the descriptions of 
the Fathers, and the added evidence of Joliet's map 
makes the argument conclusive. 

The only objection made by any person to whom 1 
have suggested this location, is that when the white 
settlers began to occupy Democrat prairie there was a 
growth of burr oak timber on this ridge, from which 
they split rails for their first fences. Tt is not probable, 
however, that man) trees, if any, could have been found 
among that timber, which had a growth, of a century. 
It was not a dense forest, but might be better described 
as rather thick openings. All along the ridge described 
and around Rush lake, have been found numerous 
Indian relics of arrow heads, stone hatchets and the like. 
There was one large mound in the village of Eureka, full 



84 Earlv History oj the Fox River Vahev. 

of bones of dead Indians and another on the ridge soutli 
of that village. (2). 



NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII. 

( [). Capt. Thomas G. Anderson, on his first trip to 
the Mississippi, as a traders clerk, in the year 1800, 
claims to have made the run from the portage to Prairie 
Du Chien, with a rather heavily laden canoe, in eighteen 
hours. ("Personal Narrative," IX Wis., Hist. Coll. 
147)- 

(2). Mt. Tom. in the town of St. Marie twelve miles 
or thereabouts south-west of the city of Berlin, in Green 
Pake county, has been suggested as the site of the Mas 
coutin village. It is a hill or small mountain, somewhat 
steep and rocky, rising up out of a sandy plain and the 
top of it could hardly have been the site of any Indian 
village. It would correspond with the descriptions of 
the Fathers, only in its distance from the river, about 
two miies, and in no other particular. Hon. A. J. Tur- 
ner, of Portage, has called my attention to a place on the 
river near and a short distance below the city of Prince- 
ton, called St. Marie, where there is a spring, which a 
Catholic tradition claims was blessed by Father Mar- 
quette. A rustic chapel is erected there and devout 
Catholics make pilgrimages to it. I do not know the 
origin of the tradition, or that it is claimed that this is 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 85 

the spring, near the Mascoutin village alluded to in Mar- 
quette's narrative. It is certainly much farther up the 
river than Allouez could have reached, on his first visit 
to the Mascoutins. It is about the right distance for a 
camping place at the tnd of the first clay of the voyage 
of Marquette and his companions after leaving the vil- 
lage of the Mascoutins. It is quite possible that they 
camped there for the night. Marquette's only allusion 
to a spring anywhere is the statement that he had the 
curiosity to drink of the mineral waters of the river, 
which was near the town. Mineral springs are so 
numerous at points along the river, that this alone would 
he slight evidence. 

I am indebted to \V. C. Cowling, of Princeton. 
Wis., who made some investigation at my request, for 
further information here given. The spring known as 
Marquette's well, is one of a considerable number of 
springs in a marshy spot. The story that it was blessed 
by Father Marquette is of comparatively recent origin. 
but the little brick chapel directly across the river from 
the spring is much older. The exact date of its erection 
could not be ascertained, but Mr. Cowling concludes 
that it was about the year [855. The altar and the chan- 
cel decorations are beautiful, including a hue picture of 
the Madonna and child, and are well cared for. ( )utside 
the chancel the chapel is neglected within and without 
and dilapidated. A cut of the chapel from a kodak taken 
bv Mrs. Cowling" i.s given in this book. 



86 Early History of the Fox River Vailev. 

I have been surprised to find that there is a legend, 
believed by many Catholics that Marquette once had a 
mission at this place and that this chapel was erected by 
him. If Marquette stopped there it could have been no 
more than for one night. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE RESULTS OF MISSIONARY WORK. DEPARTURE 

OF ALLOUEZ. 

in the year that Allouez commenced the mission of 
St. Francis Xavier at Green Bay. the celebrated Indian 
Bible of John Elliott was published as a means for Chris- 
tianizing the natives, then within a few miles of Massa- 
chusetts Bay. Nothing remains on the earth that can, 
in the remotest degree, be traced to the labors of that 
apostolic man. No man now living can read that Bible. 
The tribes for whose edification Elliott had constructed 
a grammar of an unwritten language and translated this 
Bible have long" since disappeared. The Bibliolatry of 
the Puritan minister and the cold, unadorned service as 
conducted in the Puritan meeting house of that day, 
would hardly find any trait or quality of the Indian 
character to which they could appeal. The Puritan 
minister of that time has no counterpart now, and the 
meeting 1 house, with its high pulpit, sounding board and 



SS Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

utter disregard for the comfort of those who were com- 
pelled to attend the preaching there lias disappeared. 
There are still spires pointing heavenward in Wisconsin, 
beneath which some of the dusky descendants of some 
of those to whom Allouez tried to explain the mysteries 
of the faith, from the Jesuit standpoint, assemble each 
Sunday morning to perform their devotions and witness 
the solemn ceremonial, and listen to the same solemn 
words used by Allouez at Green Bay on the 3rd of 
December, 1669, and on the shore of Lake Winnebago, 
near the mouth of the Fox River, on the joth day of 
April, 1670. The immediate and visible results of the 
labors of Allouez and Andre were scarcely greater than 
those of Elliott and Mayhew. But the Jesuits had a con- 
solation in their lonely wanderings which the Puritans 
could not have. When Marquette reached Green Bav. 
three and one-half years after the arrival of Allouez, he 
records as evidence of the success of the labors of 
\llouez and Andre that they had baptized more than 
two thousand, since they had been there. One who 
should infer from this that they had any considerable 
fraction of that number living and professing to be 
Christians, would be m error. 

With their universal polygamy, the births among 
the natives were numerous. But. under the conditions 
^'\ existence among them, the law of the survival of the 
fittest worked relentlessly. One of the pressing duties 
of the Jesuit missionary, which was never absent from 



Marly Htstvrv of the Fox River Valhx. 8q 

his mind, was to seek out the mat upon which a dying 
child was about to leave the world, and by some means, 
surreptitiously, under false pretense of administering 

medicine or otherwise, to snatch a soul from the very 
gate of hell and. dispatch it to paradise by baptism. A 
soul so saved was as valuable as one saved after the trials, 
temptations and dangers of a long life, and their first 
business was the salvation of souls. Accordingly, all 
through the Relations we rind exulting statistics of the 
number of souls dispatched to paradise in this way. Nor 
was this method confined to children. Dying men and 
women were baptized whenever found. The Relation of 
1671-72 tells how Vilouex lost his way in the forest 
toward the Outagamis 1>\ going out of his way to seek a 
dying woman, and was compelled to stay alone in the 
woods through the night, ff their success among the 
living was not great, they could comfort themselves with 
their success among the dying. They were cautious and 
conservative about baptizing even those who professed 
a desire to become Christians, keeping them under in- 
struction as neophytes a long time and steadfaslty refus- 
ing baptism to those who would not renounce polygamy. 
A person who has read one n\ the Relations has read 
all as to their mode of procedure. When they could. 
the\ assembled the men of a village and explained the 
mvsteries of the faith to them. Day after day they 
passed from cabin to cabin, talking to and instructing 
men. women and children. Bui the hope of Christian!/.- 



go Earty History of the fox -River Vaney. 

ing whole tribes vanished when the Hurons were driven 
from their homes by the Iroquois and were scattered in 
fragmentary bands; for among the Hurons. their work 
had been most successful. The missionaries there had 
given their lives, under cruel tortures, with a fortitude 
which might excite the admiration of a stoic. No mis- 
sionary annals in the world, except those of the Jesuit 
missions in Japan, could exhibit so long a roll of mar- 
tyrs, in proportion to their numbers, as the little band of 
Jesuits in New France. They were but fifteen, in all. 
when Frontenac came there. From the first they had 
struggled against the sale of brandy to the Indians, with- 
out success. The profits of the trade in which governors 
and officials were often, usually silent, but scarcely con- 
cealed partners, were great and probably no other com- 
modity of the same value would purchase as many 
beaver skins or peltries, as brandy, (i). Father Allouez 
had erected crosses in the villages of the Outagimis and 
the Mascoutins, in 1672. In December, 1672, the bark 
cabin and chapel of the father at De Pere, was burned. 
A church had been erected at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, 
and the natives at the Bay showed some jealousy, be- 
cause no church had been built at the mission among 
them, and the next year, after the burning of their 
chapel, the erection of a church was commenced. This 
was completed in 1673. It was inclosed by a stockade. 
in which were storehouses, workshops and dwellings, 
the traders having their station there. 



Early History of (he frox River Valley. gi 

It is apparent that after the Indians became satisfied 
that the missionaries had no occult or thaumaturgic 
power, and that the sign of the cross would not give 
them victory against enemies stronger than themselves, 
they began to regard the Fathers with less respect than 
at first. Doubtless, the medicine men and dreamers of 
dreams among them were not inactive in opposition to 
the black robes, whose success would end their occupa- 
tion and influence. After all their labors and trials, the 
fathers had little to console them except the remem- 
brance of the thousands of souls whom they had 
snatched from the clutches of the evil one by baptism, 
in their last earthly hours. 

Father Marquette returned from his exploration of 
the Mississippi with greatly impaired health. After de- 
scending that river to the mouth of the Arkansas River, 
they had returned, and. turning into the Illinois River, 
had paddled up a branch of that river (the Wau-ke-sha 
nr Little Fox), portaged across to the Chicago River 
and returned by Lake Michigan. After a voyage of 
over 2,700 miles, worn out and sick with dysentery, he 
turned the prow of his canoe into Green Bay and sought 
much needed rest at the mission of St. Francis Xavier. 
deeming all his fatigue repaid by an opportunity which 
he improved to baptize one dying Indian child. (Shea, 
p. 52). He arrived there in September, 1673, and was 
compelled to remain until November of the following 
year, when his malady having been relieved, he set out 



9<? Earty History of the Fox River Valley. 

with two men, who had heen with him before, to ac- 
complish the object nearest to his heart — the establish- 
ment of a mission among- the tribes of Illinois. While 
lie was at the mission of St. Francis Xavier. at De Pere, 
in the summer of 1674, Marquette prepared the report 
and map of his voyage, which are published by Shea in 
the "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Val- 
ley." During a voyage of a month on Lake Michigan 
lie was fairly well, but as soon as the snow began to fall 
his old. malady returned and he was compelled to winter 
at the portage between the Chicago and Illinois Rivers. 

Fearful that he would not be able to reach the na- 
tives at Kaskaskia, to which place he had promised to 
return, he with his two companions, made a "novena," 
in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed 
Virgin, after which he was so much better that he was 
able to go on and set otit on the 29th of March. He 
reached his destination April 8th. 1675. 

lint the work of this good man and earnest mission- 
ary was nearly ended. His malady increasing he was 
compelled to desist from his work and started with his 
two companions to return to St. Ignace. Death was 
more speed\ than his canoe, and overtook him at the 
month of a small river, on the east shore of Lake Michi- 
gan which i )r. Shea says, "still bears his name." (Dis. 
and Ex.. etc.. p. 1, XX). It is doubtful, however, 
whether it ever bore his name, except in the Jesuit litera- 



Ear iv History of (he Pox River Valley. 93 

ture, where many lakes and rivers bore names given to 
them by the Fathers, which were never known else- 
where. The place was probably at the month of the 
small stream, popularly known as the Betsy River, near 
the City of Frankfort. Here his faithful companions 

buried him, as he directed in his last hours. 
"The chamber where a good man meets his fate. 
Is privileged above the common walks 
( )f virtuous life; quite on the verge of Heaven." 

Marquette was only thirty-eight years old when he 
died. In the great profusion of pious literature record- 
ing the last hours and death of good men, there is none 
more simple and pathetic in its minute details, than the 
Jesuit account of the last hours and death of Marquette, 
as detailed by his two faithful companions. They buried 
him and planted a cross over his grave, as he had direct- 
ed. Two years later, a band of Kiskakon Indians, a 
small tribe who had embraced Christianity and to whom 
Marquette had given instruction, at Chegoimagon, were 
hunting on the east side of Lake Michigan. In the 
spring before returning to their home, near Sault Ste. 
Marie, they visited the grave of their beloved teacher. 
They took up his body and after the Indian fashion, 
removed everything from the bones, enclosed the bones 
in a bark casket and escorted by a lieet of nearly thirty 
canoes, including some of the ferocious Iroquois, his 
bones were borne to St. Ignace and buried with solemn 
and appropriate rites under his church at that place. 



94 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

Marquette had promised the Illinois that he or some 
other missionary would return to them. Allouez was 
selected as Marquette's successor. He had labored 
seven years among- the tribes around Green Bay and the 
Fox and Wolf Rivers. His voyage to his new held so 
illustrates the character of the sturdy old pioneer mis- 
sionary of Wisconsin that a brief description of it will 
not be out of place here. His own narrative of the 
voyage is translated and published by Shea (pp. 66-77). 

While waiting for favorable weather to start on his 
journey, he made some visits around the Bay and bap- 
tized two sick adults who soon died. His last visit was 
made to the Outagamis, where he baptized six sick chil- 
dren. He says of this people : "I was much consoled to 
see a marked change in the mind of these people; God 
visits them by His scourges to render them more docile 
to our instructions." He embarked about the close of 
October. 1675. but was stopped by the ice before he had 
got far, and was obliged to wait somewhere on the east 
shore of the Bay — not for the ice to thaw, but till the ice 
should be strong enough to bear them. It was not till 
sometime in February that he could go on. Then he 
and his two companions became the pioneers of the 
modern sport of ice-boating; for, putting their canoe on 
the ice they improvised a sail and, with a fair wind sailed 
away toward Sturgeon bay. When the wind failed they 
dragged the canoe with ropes. It is not probable that 
they ran the bottom of the canoe along on the ice. 



Eariy Htsiory of the Fox Rivsr Valley. gj 

They probably cut some small saplings and made some 
kind of a cradle to place the canoe upon, thus putting 
runners under it, something- like those of the "jumpers*' 
sometimes used by the New Englanders of a former 
generation. 

Passing near the Pottawatomies, lie heard that a 
young- man, whom he had baptized at the Mission of the 
Hoi)- Ghost several years before, had been killed by 
bears and he turned aside to go and console the parents, 
with whom he was acquainted. The natives avenged 
the young man. by a great bear hunt, in which he was 
informed, they killed more than five hundred bears. 
They shared some of the meat with him and he resumed 
his new method of navigation to Sturgeon Ray. twelve 
leagues from the village of the Pottawatomies. Going 
up that bay they made the portage over the route of the 
present Sturgeon Bay canal, a league and a half, and 
launched their canoe on the water of Lake Michigan. 
As he had given the name of St. Francis to Green Bay, 
the Fox River and Lake Winnebago, so now he gave to 
Lake Michigan the name of St. Joseph, the patron saint 
of all Canada, because they reached it on the eve of that 
saint's day. When they attempted to land, the canoe 
was nearly crushed between floating ice which was 
driven against it by the wind, and the ice which was fast 
to the shore. The rivers along the coast were still 
frozen, and they could enter none that they passed until 
April 3rd. This was eleven days from the time when 



ob Early History of the Fox River Valley 

f r r 

they launched the canoe on the waters of the lake on the 
23rd of March. The river which they then entered was, 
probably, the Milwaukee, and Allouez erected a large 
cross as a reminder to the Indians who resorted there in 
great numbers, for the hunting, from different parts. 
The date of reaching the mouth of the Chicago River is 
not given. He met there a hand of Indians whose chief 
prayed him to visit their village, evidently with the same 
idea which the Mascoutins. Miamis and Outagamis had. 
upon his first appearance among them, that the black- 
robe could give him victory over his enemies. He 
reached the Kaskaskia mentioned by Marquette as the 
place of his mission. April 27th. 1077. 

It does not appear how long Allouez remained there 
at that time. He returned there two years later and re- 
mained until the following year when learning of the 
approach of La Salle with his expedition, lie returned to 
the Wisconsin missions. He did not return to [llinois 
until 1684. He had been joined in Wisconsin, some 
time before his first visit to Kaskaskia by Fathers Silvey 
and Bonneault am] was consoled by better success 
among the Indians after their arrival. 

In 1084. he returned to Illinois, but again left that 
mission in 1687, on hearing a false report that La Salle 
was still alive. He was back in [llinois in [689, and is 
said to have died at St. Joseph's, in [690. These details 
of his movements after his first visit to Illinois arc erath- 



Early History of the Fox River Va> >y gy 

ered from Shea's note on Father Allouez, in connection 
with the father's narrative of his first voyage to Illinois. 

It is certain that Allouez did not wish, to meet La 
Salle. This is not the place to enter into the cause, or 
the charge that Allouez incited the Indians of Illinois 
against La Salle. The subject will be mentioned in 
another connection. 



XOTES TO CHAPTER IX. 

(i). Father Membre informs us that on La Salle'* 
second trip to the country of the Illinois, he was detained 
three weeks at Michilimacinac, trying to purchase a 
supply of corn. Fie could get none in exchange for 
either goods, or money. At last he was compelled to 
offer liquor for corn and obtained sixty sacks in one day. 
(Shea. Dis. and Ex. 162). 



CHAPTER X. 

ADIEU TO THE JESUITS— THE EARLY FUR TRADERS. 

One noticeable characteristic of the Jesuit Relations 
is their careful avoidance of all mention of the doings, 
and even of the names, of anybody but themselves and 
the Indians among whom they labored. Occasionally, 
where information is received from some person, which 
may be useful in their p 1 ans, as in the case of Nicollet, 
they mention a name. When it is necessary to a full 
explanation of their own acts they mention others, as in 
the case of the trouble which Allouez and Dablon found 
between the bush-rangers and the Indians, at Green 
Bay, in the fall of 1670. When an allusion is made to 
the other white men among the natives, they are spoken 
of as some, or so many, ''Frenchmen." Even in Mar- 
quette's narrative of the voyage to the Mississippi 
River, he mentions- only incidentally that the day on 
which "M. Jollyet arrived with orders of the Comte de 
Frontenac, our Governor, and M. Talon, our Intendent, 
to make this discovery with me," was identical with the' 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. gg 

day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Vir- 
gin. "M. Jollyet" is named but five times in the narra- 
tive which follows, and only when the narrative would 
be incomplete without it. But for this reticence as to 
others, we might have had many interesting facts relat- 
ing to the eariy history of the Northwest, of which there 
is no account. What the Jesuit Fathers might have 
accomplished if peace had reigned through all the land, 
we can only conjecture. The wars of the French with 
the English and the powerful Iroquois, and the wars 
among the savage tribes, interfered with their work. It 
is not improbable that the type of savage life and charac- 
ter, which they found among most of the tribes then in 
Wisconsin, would have been an insuperab.e obstacle to 
any great success under any circumstances. How much 
the example and influence of the other French "Chris- 
tians." with whom the savages had dealings, contributed 
to their want of success, we can only conjecture, but it 
is pretty certain that they were more apt pupils in the 
vices of the white men than in their religion. 

There were certain 1 ) 7- six and perhaps more French- 
men at Green Bay before Allouez arrived. Two had 
been among the Foxes and by their conduct, aroused a 
prejudice against the French. Doubtless some of them 
had been among the other tribes in the vicinity. Among 
the Pottawatomies they had so conducted that members 
of that tribe had urged Allouez to visit them, before he 
came, for the purpose of restraining the excesses of the 
LofC. 



too Early History of ike Fox River Valley. 

traders. The "Coureurs de Bois" were then mostly 
young men, hardy, enterprising*, energetic, but, away 
from all the restraints of a civilized social state, reckless 
in their disregard of the laws of God and man. Their 
numbers were increasing for the wild free life of a bush- 
ranger had a fascination for the youths of Canada as well 
as for many who came across the sea, and the traffic in 
furs was the only field for independent enterprise. 

The meagerly paid officials of the government, from 
the Governor and Intendent down, were supposed to be 
connected with the traffic in some way. Men of energy 
and ability, of decayed fortune, like Frontenac, sought 
and obtained appointments in the distant colony. It 
seems to have been expected that, in some way, they 
would mend their fortunes. (i). Men of noble blood, 
scions of aristocracy, as well as those of more humble 
origin, sought fortune in the new country, where the 
only avenue to fortune was through this trade. It was 
in vain, under such conditions, that orders from the 
King forbade any trade with the Indians, outside of the 
settlements. Officials who would gladly have enforced 
the law against those who were in the interest of their 
rivals, were themselves profiting by the same illicit 
traffic, and the bushrangers, sometimes remaining years 
away from the settlements, managed to find a market 
and profit in the forbidden trade. Some of the most 
enterprising followed the Indians on their annual hunts. 
Thev, as well as the missionaries, could live with and like 



Barlv Historv of the Fox River Vallev. roi 

the Indians. Many of them, in romantic phrase, wooed 
and won the dusky maidens of the forest for their brides; 
in the plain vernacular married squaws. These unions 
were not always, probably not often, blessed by the 
Church and their permanency was not an assured cer- 
tainty. The conspicuous "footprints on the sands of 
time" which they left behind them, were a large popula- 
tion of mixed blood, which did not diminish so long- as 
only the fur trade attracted white men to these remote 
regions. (2). 

Among the bushrangers were some of a higher type, 
like Nicholas Perrot, shrewd, intelligent and capable; 
even men like Daniel Greysolon du Lhut, scion of the 
lesser nobility of France and cousin to La Salle's able, 
brave, indomitable lieutenant, the man with the iron 
hand, Henri de Tonty. Habitual law breakers as they 
were, Perrot and du Phut rendered great service to the 
government whose laws they disregarded. 

The headquarters of Perrot seem to have been at 
Green Ba\ for several years. No other Frenchman had 
acquired such influence among the savages around and 
along the waters of the upper lakes and their tributary 
streams. Upon his first arrival at Green Bay, he had 
induced the Menomonees and Pottawatomies to settle a 
quarrel, about which they were inclined to go hunting 
for each others scalps, and all through his career in the 
west, no other white man seemed able to control the 
restless savages to the same or a similar extent. 



102 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

When La Salle fitted out his expedition for the Illi- 
nois country, he had built a small vessel of about sixty 
tons, which was the first sailing- craft ever on the waters 
of the upper lakes. She is sometimes spoken of as the 
first to reach Green Bay. But it is not probable that her 
white canvas was ever seen at the mouth of the Fox 
River, La Salle had sent out men in advance, to collect 
peltries. It seems they had succeeded in purchasing a 
considerable quantity which were ready for the arrival of 
the ''Griffin," as Parkman spells the name, or ''Griffon,'' 
as it is spelled by Winsor. Here La Salle found (which 
he did not often find, in his expeditions) a friend in a 
Pottawatomie chief, whom Frontenac had, in some way, 
attached to himself and who was, therefore, a friend 
of Frontenac's friends. La Salle's commission for- 
bade him to trade with the Ottawas, the "Outaouacs" 
• )t the Jesuit Relations, under which general name they 
included all the tribes west of Lake Huron who visited 
Montreal to market their peltries. But, as the Governor 
was a partner, or interested in the profits of his enter- 
prises, La Salle could disregard such limitations of his 
authority. He was bound then, on his first disastrous 
expedition to Illinois, but, according to Hennapin's 
account, he determined to send the Griffon back with 
the furs already secured, without consulting any of* his 
followers and, probably, added thereby to the discon- 
tent, which had already caused many desertions among 
the rather motley company with which he had set out. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. fo? 

The Griffon sailed September 18th. 1679. and was not 
heard of again, except in rumors which could not be 
verified. The loss was serious to both La Salle and his 
creditors, who were pressing* him. La Salle's Louisiana 
patent, which authorized him to build forts and take pos- 
session of an empire, all at his own expense, gave him a 
monopoly therein of the trade in buffalo skins, which 
promised to become, important. 

A great expedition against the Iroquois was planned 
by La Barre. and Du Lhut had been sent among the 
western tribes to induce them to join in the proposed 
attack upon the common enemy. He had been unsuc- 
cessful and meeting Perrot at Mackinaw induced him to 
try what his influence among the savages could do. 
Perrot with presents for the Indians and carrying among 
them the tomahawk, the emblem of war, visited the 
tribes in the vicinity of Green Bay. Five hundred war- 
riors, including some of the treacherous and uncertain 
Outagamis, gathered at Mackinaw for the expedition. 
It required all of Perrot's address and skill to keep the 
Foxes from turning back on the route. When Duran- 
taye, Du Lhut and Perrot arrived at Niagara with a 
force of one hundred and fifty bushrangers and five 
hundred Indians, they were informed that La Barre had 
established a truce with the enemy which gave no pro- 
tection to the western allies of the French, and they re- 
turned home, indignant. 



204 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

The Fox and Wisconsin route to the Mississippi had 
before 1684 seen many canoes of travelers, adventurers 
and traders pass up and down the placid waters of the 
upper Fox and the turbulent rapids of the river below 
Lake Winnebago. 

Father Louis Hennapin. who had ascended the Mis- 
sissippi from La Salle's fort Crevecoeur, on the Illinois 
River early in 1680 and had been captured and detained, 
with two companions, by the Sioux, is regarded with 
suspicion as an authority, when recounting his own 
deeds. In the summer of that year, I)n Lhut, who had 
penetrated from Lake Superior to the upper Mississippi 
and had been over two years, in the woods, found Hen- 
napin and his companions detained by the Sioux. They 
were released after Du Lhut joined them and returned 
to Canada by the Wisconsin and Fox River route. They 
slept a night at the portage, as Hennapin says, "to leave 
marks and crosses on the trees." (3). Tn describing the 
descent of the F^ox he says it winds wonderfully "for 
after six hours sailing we found ourselves opposite the 
place where we started." Tt is not improbable that they 
wandered among bayous instead of keeping the channel. 
They had no guides, as Marquette had seven years be- 
fore, through the marshes and wild rice beds. From 
Flennapin's account it appears that the Miamis, whom 
Allouez. Dablon and Marquette had found with the Mas- 
coutins, had left. He says : "We passed four lakes, two 
pretty large, on the banks of which the Miamis had for- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. /oj 

merly resided. We found Mascoutens, Kickapous and 
Outagamy there, who sow Indian corn for their subsist- 
ance." They made a portage at a rapid called Kakalin 
and arrived at .the "Bay of the Fetid." Here Hennapin 
savs: "We found Frenchmen trading", contrary to orders, 
with the Indians." Th.ev remained there two days, "to 
rest, sing t lie Te Deum high mass and to preach." He 
had not celebrated mass for over nine months, because 
he had no wine. He found a Frenchman who had a little 
wine and he relates how, providentially, he had Father 
Membre's vestments with him so that he was enabled to 
celebrate the mass. Hennapin's habits of exaggeration 
and invention of facts even, to enhance his own import- 
ance, was equalled by his suppression of facts when it 
suited his purpose. It is probable that he was a guest at 
the mission of St. Francis Xavier during his stay there, 
but. from his narrative, no idea would be suggested that 
there was ever a priest there, or a mass said there, before 
that time, or that there was, or ever had been, a Jesuit 
mission there. The French of the party confessed and 
communed. One of them traded a gun for a larger 
canoe and they went on to Mackinaw. 

1 lennapin and Du Unit missed, by a few days only, 
meeting Tonty and Father Membre at Green Bay. 

In the summer of 1680, after the establishment of La 
Salle among the Illinois was looted by his own men, who 
deserted, and the Illinois had vanished before the inva- 
sion of the Iroquois, Tonty, with three other men and 



job Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

Fathers Gabriel Ribourde and Membre, started with a 
broken leaky canoe to try to make their way to the Pot- 
tawatomies. While they were trying to mend the canoe 
one day. Father Gabriel Ribourde strayed into a grove 
to say his breviary, met three Kickapoos of a small war 
party against the Illinois, who killed and scalped him 
and threw his body into a hole. As he did not return 
and they could find no trace of him they went on the 
next morning, hoping to find that he had walked ahead 
along the river bank. Finally, being compelled to aban- 
don the leaky canoe (probably one of the wooden canoes 
of the Illinois), they traveled on foot up the west side of 
Lake Michigan and after great suffering, and nearly 
famished, they reached a Pottawatomie village, not far 
from Green Haw After resting and recruiting their ex- 
hausted energies thev went to the mission of St. Francis 
Xavier, which they reached about October 22nd. only a 
few days after Hennapin and Du Phut, with their men, 
had started from there for Mackinaw. 

Polity's party had no canoe and it was getting late in 
the season for a canoe to go to Mackinaw and return. 
which, probably, was the reason that they remained at 
Green Bay (or rather at De Pere), until the thaw of the 

following spring. 

In strong contrast to the reticence of Hennapin 011 
the subject, Membre warmly acknowledges the hos- 
pitality of the Jesuit Fathers there. In the spring 



Early History oj the Pox River Valley. 107 

Father Enjalran, who was then at this mission, himself 
took them in a canoe to Mackinaw. 

Before passing entirely from the Jesuit missions and 
missionaries to other topics, this seems a proper place to 
allude to the relations between the Jesuits, and especially 
Father Allouez, and La Salic. This unfortunate adven- 
turer attributed his disasters largely to Jesuit machina- 
tions against him. All the priests who accompanied his 
expeditions were the gray-gowned Recollects of the 
Franciscans, who had formerly relinquished the mis- 
sionary work in Canada to the Jesuits. He had, or 
thought he had, reason to believe that Allouez had plot- 
ted against the success of his first great enterprise, the 
establishment of Fort Frontenac. It seems certain that 
Allouez retired from the Illinois mission of Marquette 
when he heard of the approach of La Salle, with his first 
expedition to that region, and returned to Wisconsin. 
When La Salle was received hospitably and, apparently 
with great pleasure by the Illinois Indians, their chiefs 
seem to have changed their minds suddenly, in one 
night, and discouraged his plans. In the night, a Mas- 
coutin chief, named Monso, had appeared with live or 
six MiamiSj and held a secret council with the Illinois 
chiefs against 1 .a Salle, representing him to be in the 
interest of their enemies, the hated Iroquois. La Salle 
attributed this intrigue to Allouez. (See Parkman, Dis. 
etc., ]). 161 and note). 

The Jesuits had entertained a design, it is said, of 



108 Early History of the Fox River Valler. 

establishing a "New Paraguay'' in Canada and. when 
that became hopeless, then in the Mississippi valley. 
(Parkman, Disc etc.. pp. 97-99). There was no love 
between the Jesuits and the wandering fur traders. 
whose influence among the savages, was very demoral- 
izing. But La Salle was a fur trader on an enlarged 
scale, whose plans contemplated the occupation, per- 
manently, of the advantageous points, with great forti- 
fied trading posts and colonization to some extent. The 
"Coureurs de Bois," who had become a numerous body, 
without organization but allied in feeling and by the 
character of their occupation, out of sympathy or har- 
mony with such schemes as La Salle's, did not look 
favorably upon them. In fact every interest in New 
France, excepting that of the governor. Frontenac, who 
was interested in them personally, was antagonized by 
his schemes. The merchants saw a prospect of the trade 
being diverted from Quebec and Montreal, to posts far 
out in the wilderness; there was scarcely a family of any 
standing which was not represented in some way in the 
fur trade. The Jesuits saw destruction to their plans 
and hopes and the centres of missionary enterprise likely 
to be occupied by the poverty-bound Franciscans, who 
read their breviaries faithfully and ignored all worldly 
interests, except as they might open a way for Chris- 
tianity. In the view of the Jesuits, opposition to them 
and opposition to religion were synonymous. 

[11 addition to all these antagonistic forces, there was 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. log 

an insurmountable obstacle to the success of La Salle, 
in his own character. Almost invariably, he secured the 
hatred, or indifference of those who followed him. The 
brave and chivalrous Tonty and the gentle and honest 
Father Membre were almost alone, in their unselfish 
devotion to him. His character as portrayed by Park- 
man ("Discovery of the Great West," pp. 364-366), 
would account for his disastrous failures and his death, 
finally at the hand of one of his own men. He could con- 
ceive great enterprises, but could not execute them, be- 
cause he lacked some of the essential qualities of a great 
leader. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER X. 

(1). The Memoir of the King, petition of the Inha- 
bitants of Detroit to the Intendent, on the reply of M. 
Gatineau and remonstrance of M. de Tonty, then com- 
mandant, in the "Cass Mss." (III. Wis. Hist. Coll., 167- 
177), throw light on the manner of providing for the 
expenses of the French posts and the compensation of 
the commandants. They had the control of the fur- 
trade and paid the expenses out of their profits. The 
grants to La Salle, illustrated the system, on a large 
scale. 

(2). The Indians regarded the French as a superior 
order of beings. It seems that those who had daughters 
were not averse to the addition of half-breed grand-ehib 



i io Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

dren to their families. ("Cass Ms." III., W. H. Coll., 
147). Indeed, chastity seems not to have been con- 
sidered a virtue, except in married women, whose dere- 
lictions were severely punished. (Ibid. 141 -142). 

(3). It is not easy to conjecture the purpose of this, 
unless it was to mark the boundaries of La Salle's grant 
of trading privileges. This included the tributaries of 
the Mississippi, of which the Wisconsin was one. 






CHAPTER XI. 

LA SALLE MAKES TROUBLE IN THE FOX RIVER VALLEY. 
PERROT PROMOTED. THE FOXES. 

La Salle's first patent of Louisiana authorized him 
to erect forts and trade on all the rivers which flowed 
into the Mississippi. After the way had been opened, by 
way of the Fox-Wisconsin route to the Mississippi, it 
cannot be doubted that the enterprising bushrangers 
who had become a numerous body around the region of 
the straits of Mackinaw and Green Bay, availed them- 
selves of the opportunities for adventure and trade 
thereby opened to them. Probably, while Du Lhut was 
carrying on his illicit traffic, between Lake Superior and 
the upper waters of the Mississippi, canoes loaded with 
goods for traffic with the natives lower down the river, 
were passing up the Fox and down the Wisconsin, tres- 
passing on the trading domain covered by the grant to 
La Salle. The bushrangers were trading everywhere, 
as those found by Hennapin at Green Bay, in the fall of 



lis Ectrlv History of the Fox River Valley. 

1680 were, "contrary to orders." Whether La Salle 
claimed that La Baye was within his grant, as stated in 
"Historic Green Bay," (p. 72), or not, the Wisconsin 
clearly was within it. It is said that he ordered that no 
trader should pass that way without a commission from 
him and gave the Indians permission to plunder and 
even murder those who should attempt it. The unruly 
Foxes and other tribes, who were willing to plunder any- 
body if they had any semblance of authority for it, 
doubtless considered this sufficient authority and it is 
said that some fierce and bloody encounters followed. 
Frontenac, the friend and partner of La Salle, had 
been recalled and La Barre had succeeded him as gover- 
nor. To quiet the disturbance on the Fox River, in the 
spring of 1685 Perrot was commissioned by the new 
governor. He was not only to command at Green Bay, 
but also, in the "most distant countries of the west" and 
in all that he might discover. It is probable that the 
personal influence of Perrot among the savages and the 
knowledge that he, if any man, could combine the bush- 
rangers to act in harmony, had a large influence in quiet- 
ing them for a time. The force which followed this new 
commandant, with which he was to uphold the authority 
of his most Christian Majesty, Louis XIV, in this rather 
wide and undefined domain, was twenty men. La Barre 
did not favor La Salle, or his plans. He sent an officer 
to relieve Tonty and supersede him in the command of 
Fort St. Louis, which was cleanly a violation of the 



Early Historv of the Fox River Valley. i rj 

rights of La Salle under his grant from the King. But 
the King was a long way off and much might be done, 
perhaps, before an order to restore the command to 
Tonty could be procured. It was charged (probably 
with truth) that La Barre had some schemes of his own 
for managing the fur trade in the west. The appoint- 
ment of Perrot may have had some connection with 
those schemes. Perrot was empowered to build forts 
and stockades, probably at his own expense, as La Salle 
did, to be paid for out of the profits of the trade which 
would thus be secured. The English traders were inter- 
fering with the tribes even as far as the Fox River val- 
ley. Their emissaries had tampered with the treacher- 
ous Foxes and renegade Frenchmen were piloting them. 
At the north the English traders from Hudson's bay 
were extending their trade south. Measures were taken 
to counteract this tendency of the trade of the French to 
slip away from them. One of those measures was the 
appointment of Perrot. lie, probably, did not remain a 
very long time at the Bay. It was not long before he fol- 
lowed the track of Marquette and Toliet to the great 
river, with a small part)' of men and was planting the 
flag of France on forts and stockades, lie established 
one near the mouth of the Wisconsin, and another at 
Lake Pepin. 

The Fox River tribes did not remain quiet long, if 
Perrot quieted them at all. It is said that they were 



114 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

anxious for his favor and brought him presents of bear 
and other skins and smoked the calumet with him. 

The Jesuit missions among the tribes up the Fox and 
Wolf had, evidently been abandoned, as Perrot found 
Father John Elranjan at St. Francis Xavier mission, the 
only priest left west of Lake Michigan. In 1687, the 
mission church at De Pere, with the store houses and 
other buildings enclosed in the stockade surrounding it, 
was looted and burned by the "Pagan" Indians. It is 
said that this raid was the result of a conspiracy of the 
Foxes, whom Allouez had taught to go on the war path 
with crosses painted on their shields; the Mascoutins, 
among whom he had erected a large cross in 1672, the 
sight of which "much consoled" Father Marquette the 
following year; and the Kickapoos, whom he had found 
to be good, beyond description, on the first of May, 
1670. The purpose of the raid is said to have been to 
procure the guns and ammunition stored there. The 
Ottawa route to Montreal had been so dangerous be- 
cause of the hostility of the Iroquois, that the canoes had 
not gone down for two years, and Perrot himself was the 
heaviest loser, having lost furs which he had stored 
there, valued at 40,000 livres, a comfortable fortune for 
those days. Perrot was a man of strong religious tem- 
perament and a friend of the Jesuits with whom he com- 
menced his wanderings in the wilderness in youth. 
Friends of the Jesuits were considered enemies of Fron- 
tenac. He had little chance of any public employment. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley . 115 

of any value to him, until Frontenac was recalled. One 
of his earliest acts, after his appointment at Green Bay, 
was to show his religious sentiments and his friendship 
for the Jesuits by procuring and presenting to the mis- 
sion of St. Francis Xavier a fine silver soleil, or osten- 
sorium made to contain the sacred wafers. It is sup- 
posed that it was buried to secrete it when the chur.h 
was burned. The church was never rebuilt; the mission 
was a traveling or roving one for several years and then 
ceased to exist. Why it was not found and recovered by 
those who concealed it is not known. It was discovered 
one hundred and fifteen years later by a plough coming 
in contact with it on the site of the ancient mission 
house. 

The Fox Indians, apparent 1 y. had not remained very 
long on the Wolf River. In 1688, the gay teller, of mar- 
vellous tales, Baron La Hontan, visited Green Bay and 
the Fox River and beyond. He published a map which 
is given in "Cartier to Frontenac" (pp. 352-353), on 
which he locates a village of the Outagamis on the north 
side of the Fox River not very far below the portage. 
This was probably a favorable point for plundering the 
canoes of traders. The Foxes and Mascoutins seem to 
have been in alliance in those days. They had formed a 
conspiracy to plunder Perrot's post at Lake Pepin, be- 
fore the burning of the church and stockade at De Pere. 
but they had been frustrated by the coolness and skill of 
Perrot who had warning of their design. Perrot had led 



i io Ea> i) History of the Fox River Vallev. 

some of the Indians in the region of Green Bay, to join 
Denonville's expedition against the Senecas in the sum- 
mer oi 1687. In 1688 he was ordered to return to the 
upper Mississippi and, with a force of forty men. 
reached Green Bay in the fall. He was met here by a 
deputation of the Foxes and afterward visited their vil- 
lage. They gave his men raw meat, but set before him 
broiled venison, which he declined to eat. lie told them 
that "meat did not give him any spirit, but lie would 
take some when they were more reasonable." He 
chided them for not having joined the expedition 
against the Senecas and urging them to go on the bea- 
ver hunt and to light only against the Iroquois, he left a 
few men to trade among them and went on to his fort at 
Lake Pepin. His way to the portage became impeded 
by ice. but, with the aid of some Pottawatomies. they 
broke the ice and made the portage to the Wisconsin, 
which was not frozen. While he had been absent it was 
reported that the Sioux were not much inclined to 
trade because the Foxes and other tribes "boasted that 
the_\ had cut off the passage thereto." Evidently there 
was then going on that interference with the traffic on 
this route, by the treacherous Foxes, which hnallv led to 
the long war with them which ended only with their ex- 
pulsion from the Fox River valley, after they had been 
nearly exterminated. Among the Sioux, soon after his 
arrival, Perrot wrought a miracle, to convince them that 
they must not steal his goods. A box having been 



Early History of the Fox River Valley, i iy 

stolen by some of the Sioux, he ordered a cup of water 
brought, into which he poured some brandy. Then, 

addressing them, lie told them that he would dry up all 
their marshes if the stolen goods were not returned, at 
the same time setting fire to t he brandy in the cup. 
Convinced that he possessed supernatural power, they 
detected the thief, and his goods were returned. 

In the struggle between the French and English for 
the fur trade of the west, the English, through their 
allies, the Iroquois (assisted by some renegade French- 
men, probably), were seducing the tribes in Wisconsin 
and around Mackinaw from their allegiance to the 
French. The fact appears to have been that the English 
traders gave the Indians better prices for their peltries 
than the French, and paid in a better quality of goods. 
The easy-fitting allegiance of the Indians and the in- 
fluence of Perrot and others among them were not a 
match for the better bargains offered by the English. 
By the end of [689, the Fox-Wisconsin route was rend- 
ered practically useless 1>v the hostility of the Foxes, and 
the trade with the Mississippi was forced to follow the 
route by Lake Superior and the St. Croix River and that 
route soon began to 'he threatened be hostile raids 
( Cartier to FTontenac, p. 348). 

It has been rather the fashion of late, for writers on 
local history to devote their most eloquent periods to the 
cruelty and ferocity with which the French pursued the 



Il8 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

Fox Indians, until they were nearly exterminated and 
driven from the Fox River valley. 

The elementary proposition of the subject may be 
thus stated : 

The French were compelled to drive away, or exter- 
minate the Foxes, or abandon the Fox- Wisconsin 
route to the Mississippi. 

They could not drive the Foxes away, so long as they 
had any considerable number of warriors left in that 
tribe. 

Therefore they were compelled to exterminate them, 
or give up the great highway to their western posses- 
sions, which they had discovered and utilized before the 
Foxes were located upon its banks. 

The whole history of the Foxes and of the long war 
which finally nearly exterminated the tribe, fully sus- 
tains this proposition. 

The Foxes were new comers in this region, when the 
French traders began to visit Green Bay. It is gen- 
erally conceded that they were not there in 1634, when 
Nicolet visited the Fox River, as the agent of the gov- 
ernment of Canada, to negotiate with the tribes then 
resident there. Where they came from is not very cer- 
tain. The late Bon. Charles D. Robinson, of Green 
Ray, learned from a very aged Menomonee woman, who 
resided near there, a tradition, which she claimed she 
had received from her grandfather, when she was a little 



Early History of the Fox River- Valley. i ig 

girl. It was to the effect that at a remote period the 
Sanks and Outagamis lived in a fort on the high bluff 
known as "The Red Banks," on the eastern shore of 
Green Ray. Their supply of water was procured from 
the Bay, by a passage of steps cut in the clay. The 
Menomonees who resided across the Bay, (where they 
were when the French came), sent an imitation to other 
tribes to come and help them drive out the Sauks and 
Outagamis. The Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Ottawas 
and others came in great force and they besieged the 
fort. They cut off the water supply and the besieged 
were famishing for lack of water, when one of their 
young men dreamed that a young man in white 
appeared to him and told him that at midnight, he would 
cause a deep sleep to fall upon the besiegers and that 
they could escape by stealing out quietly at that time. 
Most of them did so and escaped. The few who did not 
put confidence in the dream, remained and were slaugh- 
tered. This tradition may or may not represent some 
facts of a history anterior to the appearance of white 
men on the waters of Green Bay. If it does, it may 
account for the certain fact that the Outagamis called 
themselves "Musquakies," men of the red earth. (Shea 
in Wis. His. Coll., Vol. Ill, p. 127). (1). The other 
tribes called them Outagamis. (Foxes), because of 
their chaarcter. The Jesuit Relations show abundantly, 
that they had a bad reputation among the tribes around 
Green Bav, when Allouez arrived there and that thev 



/,?,) Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

deserved it, even among those tribes, who were "more 
than commonly barbarous." They did not move down 
to the banks of the Fox River until it had become a 
route for traffic, and it is not an unreasonable infer- 
ence from their known character, that they moved down 
because they saw an opportunity to plunder somebody. 
The French never had serious trouble with any other 
tribes in the Green Bay region. The Mascoutins seem 
to have been allured to join them in some of their work; 
notably in the attack on Detroit in 17 12, and it is possi- 
ble that the bloody work there in which the Foxes were 
partly destroyed, may account, parti}' at least, for the 
sudden disappearance of the Mascoutins from history 
and the merging of a small remnant in the Kickapoos. 



.VOTES T( ) CHAPTER XI. 

( t ). Grignon, in his recollections, throws much 
doubt around this tradition and relates an Ottawa tra- 
dition that the Winnebagos formerly occupied the Red 
Banks. (Til.. W. H. Coll.. 203-4). The Winnebagos 
are said to have a tradition also that their ancestors were 
driven from that place by the Illinois. 



CHAPTER XII. 



FIREBRANDS OF THE WEST. 



When Father Allouez commenced his labors among 
the Indians up the river of the Pnants, his first visit was 
to the Outagamis, or Foxes, who seem to have been 
recent comers in that vicinity and were located on the 
Wolf River at some distance from the Fox River. He 
had met some of them at the Mission of the Holy Ghost, 
at Cheg'oimagon, and he had found some of them with 
the Winnebagos at the month of the Fox. Even then, 
they were the Ishmalites of the tribes in that vicinity. 
They were considered powerful and apparently their 
neighbors did not care to offend them. But the reputa- 
tion which they had among- the others was that they 
were "penurious, avaricious, thievish, choleric and 
quarrelsome." In the Relation of the following year 
they are spoken of as "proud and arrogant," and, as hav- 
ing formed a design to kill some of the French, in re- 
venge for some insults that some of them had received 



T22 Early History oj the £ox River Valley. 

at Montreal, so that the French traders did not care to 
go among- them that season. Of all the tribes, among 
whom Allouez found polygamy so great an obstacle, 
they were the most polygamous and the Relation of 
1671-72 spoke of their licentiousness as making a 
"Babylon" of their village. 

When Perrot led the Fox River Indians to the 
gathering of Sault St. Marie, in 167 J, their chiefs went 
to the mouth of the river at Green Bay and then turned 
back. They could not be bound by any treaty, as we 
shall see further on, for they kept faith with nobody. It 
was the Foxes, doubtless, who were the leaders of the 
foray on the establishment, when the stockade and 
church at the mission of St. Francis Xavier were burned. 
We have noticed before that by 1690 the Fox-Wisconsin 
route to the A J ississippi had become practically closed to 
the French and that before that time the Foxes had 
established themselves on the upper I^ox. In the long 
struggle between the English to secure and the French 
to retain the trade of the Indians of the northwest, be- 
fore the breaking out of King William's war, emissaries 
of the English, or of the Five Nations, who acted as 
middle men in the trade which went to the English and 
Dutch traders of New York, had been busy among the 
western tribes and especially among the Foxes. In 
1690, after the breaking out of the war, when there was 
not a French post between Three Rivers and Mackinaw, 
Gov. Golden, of New York, admits that only the exer- 



Early History of the I>ox River Valley. j-^j 

tions of Nicholas Perrot prevented a massacre of the 
French at that point and Green Bay. ("Historic Green 
Bay," p. yy). The fiercest struggle for the control of 
the fur trade of the west, was carried on while Dongan 
was governor of New York and Denonville was gover- 
nor of Canada. The two nations were not then at war, 
but Dongan, an able and energetic man, made claims 
based on concessions from the Iroquois, which, if 
allowed, would have ended the occupation of the Mis- 
sissippi valley by the French. English trading parties 
attempted to reach the tribes of the upper lakes. One 
such party was captured within two days' canoeing of 
Mackinaw. Another was stopped on Lake Erie, by Du 
Lhut, who had persuaded Denonville to permit the erec- 
tion of a post at Detroit. During this strife the friend- 
ship of the Foxes, or their enmity to the French, must 
have been servicable to the. English. Judge Campbell 
in the "Political History of Michigan," expresses the 
opinion that, but for the "Coureurs de Bois," the Michi- 
gan region would have fallen into the hands of the Eng- 
lish, before the close of the Seventeenth Century. 

About the time of the breaking out of King Will- 
iam's war, in 1689, both Dongan and Denonville were 
recalled and the claims which Dongan had asserted for 
the English, fell into abeyance for the time. The Iro- 
quois, however, who were keen traders and found much 
profit in the position of middle-men between the Eng- 
lish traders and the tribes of the upper lakes, continued 



> 3/ Early history of the Fox River Valley. 

to be so active that Frontenac, who had returned to 
Canada as governor, by a quick invasion, taught them 
to be more war)-. 

During- all the strife and even the wars that raged in 
the eastern colonies and between the two countries, the 
French occupation of the valley of the Mississippi con- 
tinued. Fort St. Louis, established by La Salle at 
"Starved Rock" on that river was never abandoned. 
Joutel in 1687 and La Hontan in 1689, found some gar- 
rison there. Tonty descended the river in 1700, in com- 
pany with twenty Canadians, residing on the Illinois, 
(Hinsdale, "Old North West," p. 43). Indeed it seems 
that there was a gradual increase of the French occu- 
pants, even during the wars of the first half of the 
Fighteenth century. 

The policy of the French was to preserve peace and 
amity among the tribes of the west; the prosperity of 
their trade required this. The policy of the Five 
Nations, encouraged by the English traders, was to sow 
discord and promote hostilities among them. No 
archives preserve any records of the "underground" 
negotiations carried on, or of the belts of wampum 
which passed. The turbulant Outagamis. grown more 
powerful and more arrogant since the days of Allouez, 
were the fittest subjects for the influence of such intri- 
gues. In 1699 Perrot, the only Frenchman who seemed 
to have any influence with the Foxes, was recalled from 
his post at Green Bay. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. / 2$ 

The history of the Fox River Valley for the first de- 
cade of the Eighteenth Century and more, is only the 
history of the doings of its Fox Indians, outside of its 
borders. 

The peace of Ryswick, which ended the war in 1697, 
was in effect but a truce for a few years, but the time 
was improved by the French. La Mothe-Cadillac, who 
had been commandant at Mackinaw, the center of the 
fur trade of the upper lake region, after a vigorous oppo- 
sition from the local interests at Quebec, Montreal and 
Mackinaw, and from the Jesuits and the intendant, who 
was their friend, had succeeded in getting permission to 
erect a fort at Detroit. The post established there by 
Du Llmt had been discontinued, after a short existence. 
With twenty-five canoes, loaded with the necessary pro- 
visions, munitions and tools and one hundred men, 
Cadillac repaired to Detroit (the strait) by the route of 
the Ottawa and Lake Huron, and erected his fort. The 
best beaver hunting in the west was in the southern 
peninsula of Michigan. One of the results of the erec- 
tion of this fort was, that the Christian Hurons and 
Ottawas, whose village was near the post at Mackinaw, 
deserted their village, their Jesuit pastors and church 
and removed to a point near Detroit. It is stated that 
the Fathers at Mackinaw, being without a following, 
burned their own church, in 1705, to prevent it from 
being desecrated after they should leave. Voyageurs 
and bushrangers, with their squaw wives began to settle 



1 2b Early History 0/ the Pox River Valley. 

around the fort and laid the foundations of the city 
which now bears the name Detroit. Some of the Potto- 
watomies also, seem to have moved to the vicinity of the 
Hnrons and Ottawas. 

La Hontan's map shows the Kickapoos on the Fox 
River when he passed through it, but shows no Mascou- 
tins, and about the beginning of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury the Kickapoos and Mascoutins appear to have been 
at the month of the Rock River, in Illinois. But their 
friendship with the Foxes appears to have continued, 
while the evidence of subsequent events, points strongly 
to an intense hatred of the Foxes on the part of the 
Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawatomies and the Menomonees, 
who still remained at, or near their old home on the west 
side of Green Bay. 

Cadillac had been appointed governor of Louisiana. 
In the early spring of 1712, Sieur Dubuisson was in 
command at Fort Detroit. There were no soldiers at 
the fort at that time and the whole French force con- 
sisted of about thirty traders, voyageurs and bush- 
rangers. The Ottawas, Hurons and Pottawatomies, 
had not yet returned from the winter hunt. Without 
any warning, Dubuisson and his companions were 
startled one day, by the appearance near the fort, of two 
bands of Foxes and Mascoutins numbering more than 
a thousand, of whom about three hundred were war- 
riors and the rest women and children. If they came 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. lay 

with hostile purpose they must have been informed of 
the small force there and expected to finish their work 
before the friendly Indians returned from the hunt. 
Otherwise they would not have come with women and 
children. It appeared very soon, that they harbored no 
friendly feeling for the Frenchmen. They surrounded 
their wigwams with a rough palisade, in spite of Dubuis- 
sons' efforts to prevent it. They became rude and inso- 
lent, declared that that country was theirs and killed the 
fowls and pigeons of the French. One day a party of 
them came into the fort determined to kill some of the 
French against whom they had taken some offence. 
They were driven out of the fort and Dubuisson became 
satisfied that they were only watching their chance to 
burn the fort and massacre the garrison. It may seem 
strange that they did not proceed at once to do so, if 
that was their purpose. But even three hundred of the 
savages would be cautious about confronting thirty 
muskets and some swivel guns protected by a strong 
stockade with block houses at each corner. They could 
only take it with the loss of many warriors. They were 
excited enough, but their excitement was increased by a 
report that a band of Mascoutins had been cut off by the 
Ottawas and Pottawatomies, on the St. Joseph River. 
A friendly Outagami told Dubuisson that they intended 
to bum the fort. Yet they lay there week after week, 
knowing that the friends of the French would probably 
arrive soon. May 13th, the Sieur Vincennes arrived 



tz8 Early History of the Fox River Valley 

with seven or eight Frenchmen from the Miami coun- 
try. Tins increased their excitement and a crisis seemed 
at hand. One day a Huron came with the news that the 
Hurons and Ottawas were near and that a Pottawa- 
tomie chief was coming with six hundred warriors to 
annihilate the enemy, 

After an interval of suspense and tear, lest the Foxes 
should hear of the approaching foe. the expected succor 
came. Pottawatomies. Menomonees, Illinois, Missoufis 
and other remote tribes; even some of the Sacs, came 
out of the woods behind the fort, each with a banner of 
its own. and soon entered the fort. They had heard dur- 
ing the winter hunt, of the contemplated raid of the 
Foxes and Mascoutins on Detroit, and, had combined, 
to strike the common enemy, a strong evidence of the 
general hatred of the Foxes which existed among all the 
other tribes. They had marched first to the village of the 
Hurons, where the Huron chief had urged an immediate 
attack and the Hurons, who also hated the Foxes, and 
the Ottawas joined in the march to the fort. The Foxes 
hung out twelve English blankets, red and emblematic 
of their intention to fight to the death. The harangue 
which the Pottawatomie war chief made to them from 
the top of a block house, shows that the assailants under- 
stood that the Foxes and Mascoutins were acting under 
English influence. 

The details of the prolonged contest that followed 
are interesting, but too long to be repeated here. It was 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. / 2Q 

not the custom of the Indians, though vastly superior in 
numbers, to attack fortified positions by assault, which 
would be certain to result in great loss of life among the 
attacking party. The Indian warrior while anxious to 
secure as many scalps of his enemies as possible, was 
careful of his own. He was wary until conquered and 
cut off from escape. Then he was a stoic of the most 
exalted order. 

The beleaguered party dug holes in the ground to 
protect their women and children from the bullets of the 
assailants, who gave them little rest. When nearly 
famished they stole out, one dark, rainy night and 
escaped to a point on the river, where they hastily forti- 
fied their position as well as they could. Here the assail- 
ants followed them and finally compelled them to sur- 
render. There had been some parleying and negotia- 
tions attempted by the Foxes before they fled from their 
first position and the address which a chief of the Illinois 
made to them shows also, that it was well understood 
that they were acting in the interest of the English. 

After they surrendered, their captors divided the 
women and children and adopted, or made slaves of 
them. The victors gave no quarter to the captured war- 
riors and amused themselves by shooting five or six 
daily. But one night the great war chief of the Foxes, 
Pamoussa with about one hundred of the captured war- 
riors, contrived to escape. 



j jo Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

The interests of the French in the fur trade of the 
west and even the safety of the posts and the traders re- 
quired peace in the land. The power of the Foxes was 
not destroyed by the mishap at Detroit, as, only a part of 
the tribe were there. Those that remained were more 
furious than ever against their enemies, while the hatred 
of them, general among the other tribes, rendered peace 
impossible, as long as they retained any power. Two 
years after the affair at Detroit, the Outagamis made a 
furious attack on the Illinois and killed or carried off 
seventy-seven of them. White men, who passed to or 
from the Mississippi by the Fox-Wisconsin route, did so 
at the peril of their lives. 

Vaudreuil, the governor of Canada, felt that the 
Illinois and other friendly tribes must be protected, or 
the trade, which was already going far too much to 
Albany, would be lost. He seems to have become satis- 
fied that nothing short of the extermination of the Foxes 
would relieve the embarrassing situation. Then fol- 
lowed the long war of the French against the Foxes and 
the chain of events which made the Fox River Valley 
the "dark and bloody ground" of Wisconsin and finally 
resulted almost in the annihilation of that tribe and the 
departure of the small remnant from that valley forever. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS. 

I have wandered so far from the Fox River Valley 
in the last chapter, for the purpose of showing the posi- 
tion of the Fox Indians, their constant state of war with 
the tribes who were friendly to the French, and the ex- 
tremely strained relations between them and the French. 
They had effectually driven the commerce with the Mis- 
sissippi valley to the routes by Lake Michigan and the 
Chicago portage and by Lake Superior and the St. 
Louis and St. Croix Rivers to portages more difficult 
than that of the Fox and Wisconsin route. It was thus 
exposed to the perils of canoe navigation the whole 
length of Lake Michigan or Superior. In 1699 Father 
St. Cosme, on his way as a missionary to the lower Mis- 
sissippi, was informed at Green Bay that the Foxes 
would not let any person pass by the Wisconsin portage 
W fear that they would go to places at war with the 
Foxes, and furnish fire-arms to their enemies. 



rja Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

Before closing the route, lest fire-arms should reach 
their enemies and probably very soon after they began 
t<) establish their villages on the Fox, they had de- 
veloped a genius for political economy and established a 
tariff on the goods carried through their country. It 
was a tariff "for revenue only." The custom house was 
the river bank and the custom house officials were the 
whole able bodied male population of the village. The 
schedules were so elastic, that in each case the duty was 
regulated according to the whim of the natives at the 
time and the strength, or weakness of the party seeking 
to pass through. Many encounters and some bloodshed 
followed and the appointment of Perrot as "command- 
ant of the west" was influenced by these troubles. Had 
Englishmen been in the situation of the French, the 
Foxes would have been driven far away, or exterminated 
before the governor of Canada made actual war upon 
them. 

Not long after the affair at Detroit the French au- 
thorities began to prepare for an invasion of the Foxes 
with a force sufficient to subdue or exterminate them. 

An expedition consisting of 425 French and several 
hundred Indians, of various tribes who joined them at 
Mackinaw, invaded the Fox River Valley in the sum- 
mer of 1 7 16. M. De Louvigny, who had formerly been 
commander at Mackinaw, commanded the expedition. 
He found the Foxes, to the number as he states, of 500 



Enrlv History of the Fox River Valle\>. /v.; 

warriors, with 3,000 women and children, strongly for- 
tified, within a palisade formed of three rows of heavy 
oak posts planted deep in the ground and with a ditch 
in the rear of the fort. (Y). Louvigny had two small 
cannons and a mortar, hut he soon found that his artil- 
lery was too light to make any serious impression on the 
stronghold of the enemy. The place was too strong to 
attempt to carry it by assault. Louvigny therefore hav- 
ing mining tools with him, determined to conduct the 
attack by regular approaches, after the manner of other 
besiegers of fortified posts. Under cover of the fire of 
three pieces of artillery and several hundred muskets he 
opened trenches within seventy yards of the palisade in 
the night and pushed his excavation sixty feet nearer 
before morning. The third night he had burrowed to 
within about seventy feet of the fort, intending to ex- 
plode a mine under the curious oak wall. The besieged 
Foxes were expecting a reinforcement of three hundred 
warriors, but these did not arrive. Knowing what Lou- 
vigny was doing and being unable to resist the under- 
ground attack and fearing the explosion which they 
knew would come, they asked for a parley. They had as 
they always did, defended themselves furiously, even the 
women taking part in the defence. Louvigny had now 
the larger part of the tribe in his power, but the terms 
which he imposed w r ere singularly lenient in view of all 
that had preceded. The terms to which they agreed 
were that they should make peace with all the tribes 



i$4 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

friendly to the French; give up all prisoners held by 
them; make war upon distant tribes, like the Pawnees 
and take captives to replace those who had been killed 
among the allies of the French: hunt furs for the French 
to pay the expenses of the war and give six chiefs, or 
sons of chiefs, as hostages for the performance of these 
conditions. To save expense, the French from Canada, 
who joined this expedition had been permitted to take 
goods with them to trade with the Indians. Among the 
wares so taken were forty barrels of brandy, and when 
the French and Indians of the expedition were en- 
camped together, it was a natural consequence, that, as 
we are informed, "hell was thrown open." ( Parkman, 
"Half Century of Conflict." p. 322). In October Lou- 
vigny reached Quebec with his six hostages. 

The loss of life in this campaign, probably was not 
very great and in the result of it there does not appear 
any evidence of the cruel and barbarous treatment of the 
Foxes, by the French, of which we have been informed 
so much, by local writers on the history of the war w r ith 
the Foxes. 

Of course the Foxes paid little regard to the terms 
of the treaty. It is at least probable, from their well 
known character, that it was not expected that they 
would, beyond keeping the peace with all the allies of 
the French and ceasing their depradations on the com- 
merce of the Fox River. They had been given a whole- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. /jj 

some lessson, as to the power of the French and fear of 
the further exertion of that power might be expected to 
restrain them. For a time it seemed to have the desired 
effect. In [618 a deputation of their chiefs visited Mon- 
treal and renewed their submission to the French. 
Though the conditions on which Louvigny released 
them had not been fulfilled, the Governor Vaudreuil 
accepted their submissions. 

Events and circumstances were too strong to be con- 
trolled by treaties. The Illinois, who were friends of the 
French, were never brave, as their history from the time 
of La Salle's first visit to them shows. The Mascoutins 
and Kickapoos continued to annoy them, though the 
Foxes did not; whether with the connivance of the 
Foxes does not appear. Those tribes certainly seem to 
have been their only allies, among all the tribes of the 
west. The old enemies of the Foxes had too many old 
scores to pay them, to resist a favorable opportunity to 
repay some of them. The Illinois in some way captured 
a nephew of Oushala, the principal war-chief of the 
Foxes and burned him at the stake. ( )f course this 
could not be permitted to go unavenged. The Foxes 
attacked the Illinois with great fury and drove them to 
the site of La Salle's post on "Starved Rock" where they 
might have perished from hunger. But they escaped 
and it is said that the Foxes permitted the escape from 
fear of the French. They took great credit to them- 
selves for permitting the escape. Parkman seems to 



jj6 Early History of the Fox River Val 

think that the provocation justified their attack on the 
Illinois, notwithstanding their treaty obligations, not to 
make war on the allies of the French. It is not improb- 
able that the nephew of the Fox chief was making war 
on the Illinois, when he was captured by them. It was 
not unusual for individual Indians to join a war-party of 
some other tribe and the Mascoutins, the allies of the 
Foxes, were making raids on the Illinois. Whatever 
the case was, the French government considered the 
action of the Foxes as justification for an effort to crush 
them. The French colonial minister wrote that "his 
majesty will reward the officer who will reduce or rather 
destroy them." Longueil, who was then temporary 
governor, however, still tried peaceful measures. The 
Sieur de Lignery, then commandant at Mackinaw, 
called a council of the Foxes and the Sacs and Winne- 
bagos at Green Bay. The Foxes promised to obey the 
King and make no more war on the Illinois. Oushala, 
the war chief, wanted a French officer sent to their vil- 
lage to assist him in keeping the young braves from the 
war-path. Desliettes. commandant in the Illinois coun- 
try, did not approve this policy and proposed the ex- 
termination of the Foxes. Beauharnois who came out 
as governor in 1726, was averse to any such attempt. 
If it should fail it would put in jeopardy the life of every 
Frenchman in the west as he thought Lignery thought 
that if they broke the promises made to him at Green 
Bay, the forces of Canada and Louisiana should unite to 



Early History rfifc FOX Kivei Valley. 1 37 

ot-ush them. Father Chardon, then at the mission of St. 
Francis Xavier, advised that they should be cut off from 
all supplies of arms, ammunitions and merchandise, and 
that all the well-disposed western tribes should be set 
upon them. He thought this would bring them to rea- 
son. 

There was great hesitation on the part of the French, 
to again attack the Foxes, because of the disastrous con- 
sequences which might follow a failure to entirely sub- 
due or exterminate them. For that reason, in 1627, the 
king directed the governor not to fight the Outagamis if 
he could help it. But the governor, being informed 
soon after, that the English had sent messages to the 
lake tribes urging them to kill all the French in their 
country, and that the Foxes had promised to do so, he 
wrote that this "compels us to make war in earnest. Tt 
will cost 60,000 livres." (2). 

Then followed one of the numerous illustrations of 
the working of the curious double-headed government, 
established in Canada. Dupuy, then [ntendent, joined 
Beauharnois in this letter and soon after informed the 
authorities at Versailles that the war against the Outa- 
gamis was only a pretext of the governor to spend the 
King's money and to enrich himself, by buying up all 
the furs of the countries through which the expedition 
would pass. 

Whatever the motive and whether the Foxes had in 
fact promised to kill all the French, or not, an expedi- 



IJ?# Early History of i/it ZW River Valley. 

tion under the Sieur de Lignery left Montreal in lun^ 
1728. 

The historian of this expedition was Father Eman- 
uel Crespel, whose narrative is published in the "Wis- 
consin Historical Collections," Vol. X., pp. 47-53, and 
less complete in Smith's "History of Wisconsin,'" Vol. 
I.* PP- 339-342. 

Four hundred French who were to be joined by 
eight hundred or nine hundred Indians, constituted the 
force which was "dispatched with orders to destroy a 
nation of Indians, called by the French the Fox In- 
dians.'' It appears that the Indian contingent which 
was to join them consisted largely of "Christian" Iro- 
quois, many of whom were settled in villages in Canada, 
Hnrons and Nipissings. Crespel was the chaplain of the 
French. There were two other chaplains of the In- 
dians. 

There seems to have been some incompetency in the 
leadership of this expedition. It was expected to move 
with great celerity, in order to surprise the Foxes. They 
embarked on Lake Huron, July 27th, and made the run 
to Mackinaw, in less than six days, which would bring 
them to that place on the 1st of August. It seems that 
they were joined there by five hundred Illinois and 
twenty Frenchmen who came from the Illinois country, 
by way of Chicago. Notwithstanding the necessity of 
rapid movement to the success of the campaign, they did 
not leave Mackinaw till August 10th. For two days 



Earty History of the Fox River Vahey. ijq 

they were detained by adverse winds. When they 
passed Cape Detour, Crespel's narrative indicates that 
they crossed to the islands at the head of the peninsula, 
and lost some of their canoes, by being driven on the 
rocks. Then follows the most unaccountable occur- 
rance narrated. They crossed to the mouth of the 
Menomonee River and landed, on the 15th of August, 
among the Menomonees, who had always been among 
the allies of the French. Father Crespel says that they 
did this, "with a view to provoke them to oppose our 
descent; they fell into the snare and were entirely de- 
feated." There does not seem to be any reasonable 
explanation of this wanton and very impolitic attack 
upon the Menomonees. It is hardly possible that Lig- 
nery did not know who were friends of the French. We 
have seen that he had held a council at Green Bay, with 
the Winnebagos, Sauks and Foxes, but a short time be- 
fore this campaign and he could not have been ignorant 
of the relations between the French and other tribes in 
that vicinity- This, with the delays, which caused the 
failure of the expedition are sufficient evidence of his 
incompetency for the task entrusted to him. As if to 
make it certain that the Foxes would receive warning of 
their approach, the next day. they encamped at the 
mouth of a river, that their Indians might hunt for fresh 
meat. After all these delays, it is almost comical to read 
that on the 17th, they halted from noon till evening, so 
as to surprise the Foxes by night. They understood 



140 Early History of the Fox River Valley, 

that the latter, or some of them were at the Sauk vil- 
lage which was on the east side of the river, not far from 
St. Francis fort. Crespel speaks of the Sauks as "our 
allies." They arrived at the fort at midnight and were 
informed that the Foxes were still there. Detachments 
were sent to surround the village and when they 
approached it they found only four persons there, Park- 
man says these were one Outagami and three Winne- 
bagos. Father Crespel was a witness of the torture and 
death of the four at the hands of the allies of the French. 
Going up the river, the first village to which they came 
was that of the \\ umebagos, which they found deserted. 
Though the expedition was against the Foxes only, they 
destroyed the Winnebago village and the growing corn 
crop. Father Crespel says that they "afterwards crossed 
the little lake of the Foxes and encamped at the end." 
The next day, being St. Lawrence, they had mass. My 
belief is that this mass was said at, or near the spot where 
Allouez said the first mass in Winnebago County, more 
than half a century before. What Crespel calls the little 
lake of the Foxes "must have been Lake Winnebago.". 
Crespel says : "We had mass and entered a small river, 
which led us to a marsh}; ground, on the borders of 
which was situated the chief settlement of those Indians, 
of whom we were in search." This description could not 
be applied to a village on little Lake Butte Des Morts, 
where some have inferred that it was. It was probably 
at, or near the site of the present village of Butte Des 



Early History of the Fox River Valley, 141 

Morts ten miles above the city of Oshkosh. It is most 
probable, also, that the palisaded fortress captured by 
Louvigny twelve years before, was at the same place. 

The expedition found here, only one old man, whom 
the savages burned at a slow fire, and some women 
whom they took for slaves. The invaders destroyed the 
village and all the growing crops of the Foxes. The 
Sauks had warned them of the approach of enemies and 
the tribe had fled. Crespel, horrified at the treatment of 
the old man taken (as he had been at the Sauk viUage), 
through an interpreter preached quite a sermon to the 
Iroquois allies, on the laws of war and the ob 1 igation of 
humanity, but did not succeed in making much impres- 
sion. 

They proceeded up the Fox River and destroyed 
another village of the enemy and laid waste the country 
as much as they could. The force then returned to 
Mackinaw, where every man was given permission to go 
where he pleased. They destroyed the fort at Green 
Bay, which had been erected in 1721, and occupied by a 
garrison since that time. The reason given was that the 
garrison would probably be too weak to defend it 
against the Foxes, who would naturally be irritated by 
the devastation of their villages and crops. Lignery 
found some difficulty in explaining this to the satisfac- 
tion of the governor, and the governor found much 
difficulty in explaining the failure of the expedition \Q 
the King. (3). 



14* 



Earlv History of the Fox River Valley. 



Louvigny's plan had been, if he failed to find the 
enemy, to destroy their villages and crops and camp for 
the winter and send out parties to attack the hunting 
parties of the Foxes. In that case, however, they prob- 
ably would have gone entirely away out of the country, 
as they did on this occasion. It is said that they crossed 
to the Iowas. They soon returned, and being reason- 
ably safe from another expedition from Canada, for a 
good while they enforced their tariff upon the commerce 
of the Fox River more arrogantly than ever before. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XIII. 

(i). Father Crespel's narrative of de Lignery's 
expedition, twelve years later, indicates that the prin- 
cipal village of the Foxes at that time, was at, or near 
the site of the present village of Buttes Des Morts and I 
think that this fort was at the same place. Ever since 
the white settlement of the country commenced there 
has been a tradition current, of a great battle, between 
the French and their allies and the Foxes, at Buttes Des 
Morts, and in a vague indefinite way some allusion is 
made to it by most writers on Wisconsin history. 
Augustin Grignon, who lived and had a trading post 
there, from about 1830, knew nothing of such a tradi- 
tion, or of any great mound supposed to contain the 
bones of the warriors slain at such a battle. (Ill, W. H. 



Early Hstiory 0/ the Fox River Valley. 143 

Coll., 293). It seems to me very probable that the tra- 
dition arose from de Louvigny's capture of the fort of 
the Foxes, which does not seem to have been attended 
by much slaughter on either side. Grignon's informa- 
tion from de Langlade did not go back to that time. It 
was of events which occurred in the life-time of de Lang- 
lade. 

(2). The details of the council held by de Lignery, 
with the Foxes and Winnebagos, at Green Bay and of 
the perplexities of the French authorities, arising from 
the intractable and treacherous nature and conduct of 
the Foxes, may be found in the "Cass Mss.," Ill, W. H. 
Coll., 148-164. 

(3). In the account of de Lignery's expedition in 
Thwaites' "Story of the State," (p. 85), it is inadvert- 
antly said, "This time the agent chosen was De Lignery, 
among whose lieutenants was Charles De Langlade, a 
fierce partisan whom we shall meet hereafter in the 
capacity of first permanent white settler in Wisconsin." 
If de Langlade was born in 1724, as his grandson Grig- 
non says, he was but four years old at the time of this 
expedition. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EXPULSION OF THE FOXES. 

The fur traders had erected stockades at Green Bay. 
When Tonty spent the winter there, in i68o ; it is said 
that he built a fort which was afterwards commanded by 
Du Lhut, which was probably only a stockaded trading 
post. (Historic Green Bay, p. 80). In 1721, Montigny 
was sent there with a garrison. Charlevoix came there, 
on his way to the Illinois country, with this force. It is 
said that they found a stockaded fort there with quarters 
for officers and men, but when and by whom it was built 
was not known. (Idem., p. 81). From 1721, a garrison 
had been there until it was withdrawn by Lignery in 
1728. Father Chardon, the last of the Jesuit mission- 
aries at the mission of St. Francis Xavier, deeming it 
unsafe to remain without some military protection, left 
with De Lignery's forces. 

The later attacks on the hated Outagamis on the 
pox River, were not by expeditions from Montreal nor 



Early History of ' tk* Fox Rivw Valley. r 45 

directed from Quebec. Beauharnois, the governor, re- 
ports under date of May 6th, 1730, that a party of them 
returning from a buffalo hunt were attacked by two 
hundred Ottawas, Ojibways, Menomonees and Winne- 
bagos, who killed eighty warriors and three hundred 
women and children. He also reported on the 2nd of 
November, of the same year that Coulon de Villiers had 
brought the news that his father, the Sieur de Villiers 
who commanded at St. Joseph, with a force of French, 
gathered from a number of French posts, and 1,200 or 
1.300 Indian allies, gathered from many tribes, had 
struck the Foxes a heavy blow and killed two hundred 
warriors and six hundred women and children. The 
absurd expectation of some of the French that a large 
part of the Foxes would perish of starvation after the 
devastation wrought by Lignery was not realized, but 
the special activity of the French and their allies in the 
west, probably stimulated by some special activity on 
the part of the Foxes after Lignery's fiasco, was doing 
effectual work in reducing the power of the common 
enemy. Parkman's Half Century of Conflict (Vol. 1, 
pp. 330. 331). relates an Indian tradition of an attack on 
the Foxes by forty Huron and thirty Iroquois "Chris- 
tians," which may have some foundation, but is alto- 
gether too mendacious on its face for the credulity of 
any believer in Indian traditions. 

There is, however, a story of the final expulsion of 
the Foxes from the Fox River which, while it rests 



jjfd Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

upon tradition, is not credited by Parkman, apparently. 
'Die only document relating to another attack upon the 
Foxes which he was able to discover is a letter from 
Beauharnois, written in June, 1730, which states that 
Dubuisson was to attack them with fifty French 
and five hundred and fifty Indians, and that Marin, 
the commander at Green Bay, w T as to join him. This 
proves two things: first, that another attack on the 
Foxes was then contemplated, and, second, that Marin 
was in command at Green Bay at that time. It is proba- 
ble that if Buisson conducted any such expedition suc- 
cessfully, Parkman would have found some report of it. 
The various traditions about it are noticed in a note to 
the first volume of "Half Century of Conflict," page 232. 
Smith's "History of Wisconsin," Vol. I, page 118, gives 
a tradition related to Carver in 1766, by an old Indian. 
This would fix the lime of Marin's expedition about 
1706, which is much to early. 

I am disposed to agree with Parkman that Indian 
tradition is of little value as evidence and I accept and 
follow here, the story told in the recollections of Augus- 
tin Grignon in the third volume of the Wisconsin His- 
torical Collections, because it is not, in any proper sense, 
an "Indian tradition." It is the recollection of a robust 
intelligent old man, of some education and retentive 
memory, of stirring events, related to him in his youth, 
by his grandfather, who died when Grignon w^as about 
twenty years old. The grandfather who told him the 



Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 147 

story, was an intelligent and able man, of some educa- 
tion and, if not an actor in those events, certainly cog- 
nizant of all of them at the time they occurred. It is the 
story of Charles de Langlade, himself, of events which 
occurred in his lifetime, as told to a boy or young man, 
upon whose memory such a tale could not fail to make a 
strong impression, re-told by him in his old age, when 
the memory is proverbially more retentive of the events 
of youth than of those of a later date, and so retold while 
the narrator was in full possession of his mental faculties 
and amusing himself by reading Charlevoix and French 
newspapers. If any tradition was ever entitled to cre- 
dence as historical, surely this must be. I give it more 
weight, perhaps for the reason that I knew Augustin 
Grignon and knew what manner of man he was. 

Doubtless there are inaccuracies in it. In names 
there are some which, apparently occur from the 
attempt of Mr. Draper to write in English, Mr. Grig- 
non's French pronunciation of those names. Thus De 
Villiers, who commanded at Green Bay in 1746, be- 
comes De Viele and Marin becomes Morancl in Grig- 
non's narrative. The narrative also gives the details of 
the expulsion of the Sauks, as occuring before the final 
defeat of the Foxes, or relates the two events in that 
order, though it seems more probable that the order was 
the other way. 

We have seen that Captain Marin was at Green Bay 
in 1730. The leader of the last expedition ag'ainst the 



1 4$ Early History of the Fox River Vallev. 

Foxes had, according to Grignon, a post west of Macki- 
naw and another on the Mississippi. Rev. Edward D. 
Neil! in Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. X, p. 
304, mentions that the great Indian fighter. Pierre Paul 
Marin was sent to take command of the fort on Lake 
Pepin, in 1750, and his son to Lake Superior and that 
the son succeeded the father at Lake Pepin two years 
later. Probably the father was the man who led the 
foray against the Foxes. 

The Foxes must have been greatly reduced in num- 
bers by the successive disasters which had befallen them 
and had probably, abandoned the warpath, for the more 
lucrative business of levying tribute on the commerce of 
the river. It was reported in 1736 that there were then 
sixty or eighty warriors of the Foxes still living. It 
seems probable that at the time they were finally driven 
from Wisconsin, before they were s'aughtered, their 
warriors were much more numerous than the estimate 
of 1736. (1). 

At the outlet of Lake Winnebago, between the main 
land and the large island known as Doty's island, is the 
channel known in the early days, as the Winnebago 
Rapids, through which the water passes into the little 
lake Butte des Morts. The current through this chan- 
nel for half a mile or more, was too strong for the use of 
paddles, and canoes had to be poled, or hauled up the 
channel. At some point west of the mouth of this chan- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. r 4.Q 

nel, probably near to it, on the bank of the little Butte 
des Morts, the Foxes then had their principal village. 
Here, when they saw canoes approaching, on their way 
with merchandise for the trade on the Mississippi, they 
put out a signal (a lighted torch), for the canoes to land 
and pay the accustomed tribute. The exaction, not 
being governed by any rule, probably., depended largely 
on the humor of the Indians and the strength of the 
party with the canoes. One tradition is that one of 
Marin's men had been recently murdered there, for re- 
sisting their exactions. These exactions became so 
vexatious that Marin resolved to put an tnd to them. 
Me raised a volunteer force at Mackinaw and Green 
Bay, sufficient for the purpose and advanced up the Fox 
River. This force, doubtless, consisted of traders, 
voyageurs and friendly Indians. One tradition is that a 
large number of Menomonees accompanied him. It is 
also said that he sent one boat in advance with a large 
supply of brandy on board, with orders to suffer the 
Foxes to plunder it without resistance. If this is true, 
it is probable that the Foxes were drunk when the attack 
was made. Below the outlet of the little Fake Butte des 
Morts, the force was divided, a part going around to 
Hank the Fox village by land. Concealed in the canoes 
by tarpaulins used to protect the cargoes from storms. 
with their fire-arms ready for use were the armed men. 
while two voyageurs paddled each. up the little lake. 
The Foxes put out a torch, the usual signal to land and 



rjo Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

pay the tribute. The Indians were squatted along the 
shore in expectation of a rich harvest of spoils, from so 
large a fleet. Suddenly, as the canoes approached the 
shore, the tarpaulins were thrown off, the armed men 
rose up and emptied the contents of their guns among 
the astonished Foxes. A swivel gun also sent a charge 
of grape and canister among them from one of the 
canoes. Then the flanking party closed in and poured 
in a volley. Both divisions of the assailants repeated the 
fire as rapidly as they could load their muskets. The 
Foxes were brave warriors and it is sometimes said that 
they fought bravely on this occasion. But it is not 
probable that they stopped to do much fighting. The 
slaughter among them must have been great, and the 
survivors fled, probably as rapidly as was possible, up 
the river. The affair was a surprise and a great slaugh- 
ter of the Foxes, but could hardly be properly called a 
battle. Any statement of the numbers killed is only 
guess-work. 

The survivors of the slaughter went up the Fox 
River to a place on the south side, about three miles 
above the Great Butte des Morts, where the elevated 
land is flanked toward the east by the marsh, which ex- 
tends down to the lake. At this place, where Captain 
Robert Grignon resided in the days of the early settlers, 
which is yet known as "the Grignon place." the fugitives 
made their camp. Marin was not satisfied to leave them 
anywhere on the highway of his traffic to the Mississippi 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. j jj 

and at some time in the same season he attacked them 
there and a battle was fought, in which there was prob- 
ably more fighting, but less slaughter, than at the for- 
mer affair. (2). The Foxes were again compelled to 
fly, after considerable loss. They fled to the northern 
bank of the Wisconsin River where the survivors located 
about twenty-one miles above the mouth of that river. 
Grignon saw some remains of their village there, in 
1795. Marin deeming that the safety of his traffic re- 
quired that they should not remain on the route of it, 
when he learned of their new location, organized a win- 
ter expedition and after marching about two hundred 
miles, carrying snow shoes for use if they should be 
needed, he came upon them. So unexpected was this 
attack that he found the few warriors there engaged in 
an amusement known as the game of straw. He sur- 
rounded and fell upon them suddenly. Some were killed 
and the others surrendered. There remained of them 
only twenty warriors and a large number of women and 
children. (3). Grignon refers to the tradition men- 
tioned by Carver, but his opinion, based on what seems 
to be sufficient reasons, was that most of the captured 
Foxes were released where they were captured, prob- 
ably upon condition that they should go, and remain, 
beyond the Mississippi. 

Mr. Grignon does not attempt to fix the date, or 
year of these events. As he knew of the expulsion of the 
Foxes and that of the Sauks, only from what his grand- 



/ t;e Early History of the Fox River Valh v. 

father." Charles de Langlade, and others who lived at the 
time and took part in the events told him, it would not 
be strange if, in his mind, the two events should be 
coupled together, as of about the same date although 
there may have been quite an interval of time between 
them. From the various traditions and from the 
account of Mr. Grignon itself, I think that a consider- 
able time elapsed, after the final expulsion of the Foxes. 
The battle with the Sauks (to be narrated hereafter) is 
conceded to have been in or about the year 1746. 
Charles de Langlade, who had then recently removed 
from Mackinaw to Green Bay. participated in the battle 
with the Sauks as he told his grandson. He did not tell 
his grandson that he took any part in Marin's attacks 
upon the Foxes. Grignon infers from his familiarity 
with the details of those expeditions and his martial 
character thai he did so. If they were as late as 1740, 
when de Langlade was about twenty-two years old, it 
would be strange if he did not. It it ocurred several 
years earlier, when de Langlade was a boy, his absence 
would be accounted for. His familiarity with the details 
would not be strange fur probably there was not a boy 
in Mackinaw or Green Bay, who was not familiar with 
all the details and heard and talked over those details a 
hundred times and for man}- years, with survivors of 
Marin's forces, both French and Indian. We have seen 
that the power of the Foxes was much diminished by the 
affair at Detroit in 1712. that two years after de Lig- 



Earlv History of the Fox River Valley 



53 



nerv's expedition, (in 1730), Villiers had destroyed two 
hundred warriors and six hundred women and children, 
of the Foxes in Illinois, and that about the same time a 
part) of Foxes returning from a buffalo hunt, were way- 
laid by two hundred Ottawas, Chippewas, Menomonees 
and \\ nmebagos who killed eighty warriors and three 
hundred women and children. 

They must by this time have been greatly reduced in 
numbers. We have seen also that in 1730 Beauharnois 
wrote to France that Dubuisson, commanding at Macki- 
naw was to lead a force against the Foxes, and Marin, 
commanding at Green Bay. was to join him, Hon. 
Moses M. Strong (Wis. Hist. Coll. Vol VIII, p. 246), 
accepts the tradition which hxes the date about 1730. I 
think it must have been later, for in that year a large 
force of the Foxes was in the Illinois country, which 
could not have been after the attack by Marin at Little 
Butte des Morts, unless the account of the loss of the 
Foxes there is greatly exaggerated. It does not seem 
that they were fighting Marin on the Fox and Villiers in 
Illinois in the same year. I think the tradition that 
Dubuisson led the attack on the Foxes, which resulted 
in a great battle at Great Butte des Morts, is extremely 
doubtful. De Langlade certainly would have known of 
it and included it in the traditions related to Grignon. 
It may have originated from the proved fact that such 
an expedition was contemp 1 ated and traditional report 
of Marin's expedition. Therefore I think Mann's attack 



1 34 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

must have been at some time after the severe handling 
of the Foxes by Villiers in Illinois, in 1730,, and after 
they had abandoned the war path, because of their great 
losses, and settled down to the business of collecting 
revenue on the Fox. Yet it is improbable and hardly to 
be considered possible that their exactions there were 
submitted to for sixteen years after 1730. Probably 
Marin's attack upon them was not long after 1730. 
Believing Grignon's account to be far the most reliable 
tradition, as to the main facts, I have followed it. (4). 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XIV. 

(1). Grignon does not recollect that his grandfather, 
De Langlade, told him that he was personally connected 
with this event, though, from his martial character, 
Grignon did not doubt that he was. If the affair had 
been about the time of the expulsion of the Sauks, in 
which De Langlade was engaged, this would seem prob- 
able. Rut it was probably some years earlier and while 
De Langlade was a boy too young to take a part in it. 
Doubtless he was contemporary and familiar with many 
who were in it for many years, and his knowledge of the 
details was derived from them. It seems improbable 
that the Foxes were permitted to continue their depra- 
dations on the commerce of the Fox River many years 
after the fiasco of De Lignery. I think it most probable 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. /jj 

that it was the expedition contemplated by Dubuisson 
(who was commandant at Mackinaw), but was for some 
reason conducted by Marin, and that it was in, or not 
long after, 1730 and before the estimate of the number 
of the Foxes in 1736. 

(2). This battle was fought on that part of the West 
half of section 35, in township 19, of range 15, in the 
town of Winneconne, Winnebago County, which lies 
south of the Fox River and adjoining the Town of 
Omro. 

(3). It is not probable that the tribe were so nearly 
exterminated as is sometimes represented. They were 
not usually all at one village at the same time. In the 
winter there were usually some hunting parties out. 

(4). History based on tradition affords great scope 
for the imagination, if the historian will permit imagina- 
tion to supply the lack of details. The subject of this 
chapter is an illustration. In one account I have seen a 
glowing description of the sun-light flashing upon the 
paddles of the voyagers. Whether the day was cloudy, 
or bright I do not know. Neither did he. Nearly all 
the recent descriptions by local writers describe a large 
force of soldiers in the expedition. Probably there were 
not regular soldiers enough west of Lake Erie to supply 
the descriptions. The men in the canoes were probably 
traders, bushrangers and employees of the traders. 
They are usually described as ascending the river in bat- 



/j6 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

teaux. The commerce of the French was carried on 
with canoes. These canoes are described by Captain 
Anderson, as he saw them in the year 1800. (IX., W. H. 
Coll., 139). They were about forty feet long, over five 
feet wide and three feet deep. They were made of bark 
of the white birch, cut into proper strips and sewed to- 
gether and to a strong frame of split cedar. They were 
pitched at the seams, so that they were water tight. A 
batteau was a large heavy boat propelled with long- 
oars. I can rind no evidence that batteaux were ever 
seen at Green Bay before the arrival of Lieut. Gorrell's 
English garrison in 1761. Most of the later descrip- 
tions, however, describe the boats used by Marin, as flat- 
bottomed double enders, or sharp at both ends. This 
describes boats of a class much in use on the Fox River 
at a later time, called ''Durham boats," some of which 
were in use as late as 1852. They had running boards 
along their sides and were propelled by men with long- 
poles and steered by a man at the stern with a long oar. 
The descriptions of such boats, loaded with soldiers 
being propelled by two gaily dressed 'A' r oyageurs" or 
soldiers disguised as such, as some accounts describe 
them, with paddles, are ludicrous /to one who has ever 
seen such boats. The French used only bark canoes, on 
the river. De Lignery's expedition came from Montreal 
in such canoes and Marin's expedition had no other 
boats. 



CHAPTER XV. 

EXPULSION OF THE SAUKS. — INDIANS AND INDIAN WARS 
AND WAYS. 

During the stirring events, from the time that the 
French traders first came to the Bay of the Puants, the 
Sanks seem to have been a comparatively insignificant 
tribe. Though they were related or closely allied with 
the Foxes, yet, in the wars between the Foxes and the 
French, they seem to have occupied, externally, at least, 
a neutral position. A party of the Sauks is mentioned 
as taking part in the attack of the friendly Indians on 
the Foxes and Mascoutins at Detroit. These were, 
probably, Sauks who had been converted by the Jesuits 
and were what are called (by courtesy) "Christan In- 
dians," who had separated from their tribe. Between 
their tribe and the Foxes there certainly was no feud. 
Allouez found their village a few miles above Green Bay. 
The Winnebagos, apparently, had moved up the river 
to Lake Winnebago and, in 1746, the village of the 



jjS Early History of the Pox River Valky. 

Sauks was on the sandy flat where the business part of 
Green Bay is now. The fort, then occupied by a small 
garrison, was on the west side of the river, nearly oppo- 
site to the Sauk village. 

De Villiers was at that time commanding at Green 
Bay, but another officer had arrived to relieve him at 
that post, with orders that the Sauks should deliver up 
some Foxes, who had been harbored among them. The 
Sauks, with whom the French had not had any trouble, 
readily gave up all the Foxes among them, except one 
boy, who had been adopted by a Sauk woman who re- 
fused to give him up. The out-going and in-coming 
commandments were dining together and, when the 
wine was in and wits were out, had some sharp words 
about the delay in giving up the boy. Thereupon, de 
Villiers took his gun and a negro servant and crossed 
the river to the Sauk village. The Sauks were holding a 
council, apparently for the purpose of inducing the 
woman to consent that the boy be given up. De Vil- 
liers met their chief and demanded the immediate sur- 
render of the boy. The chief told him that they had just 
been in council on the matter; that the woman was loth 
to part with the boy, but that they hoped to prevail on 
her peaceably to do so. Three times the chief went in to 
persuade the woman, and three times returned without 
the boy. He told de Villiers that, if he would have a 
little patience, she would consent, as he thought she 
showed signs of relenting. De Villiers, inflamed with 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. i^g 

wine, was not in condition to exercise patience, and he 
levelled his gnn and shot the chief dead. The young 
men would have rushed upon him and avenged the death 
of their chief at once, but they were restrained by the 
old men, who said that it was the delay, and not their 
French father, that had killed the chief. When de Vil- 
liers' gun was reloaded, he shot another chief, and then 
a third one. Then a Sauk boy, twelve years old (who 
afterwards, was the chief, Blackbird), seized a gun and 
shot de Villiers dead. 

The act of the boy seems to have been perfectly jus- 
tifiable, but the French deemed it necessary to avenge 
the death of de Villiers. 

The garrison was too weak to attack the Sauks un- 
aided. The traders and bushrangers rallied, (among 
them Charles de Langlade), assistance came from 
Mackinaw and joined in the attack on the palisaded vil- 
lage of the Sauks. The battle was a fierce one, with con- 
siderable loss of life on both sides. Two grand uncles of 
Augustin Grignon were among the killed on the side of 
the French. 

The Sauks, being compelled to give way, fled to the 
Wisconsin River and settled on Sauk prairie. Sauk 
County perpetuates their name in Wisconsin, as Outa- 
gamie County does that of the Foxes. 

Thus, the drunken impatience of a French officer led 
to the loss of his own life and of many other lives, and 



r6o Early History of the Fox River Valley 

the driving away of a tribe who had always been peaceful 
and friend 1 }' with the French. It is not improbable that 
the traders and few settlers at Green Bay were willing to 
find a pretext for driving the Sanks away. Their close 
proximity to the abodes of the settlers was doubtless 
dangerous to hen roosts and other appurtenances of 
settled, domestic life, and in many ways antagonistic to 
the comfort of the few settlers then there. 

Of the Foxes, little was heard as a separate tribe 
after Marin's attacks upon them. The few survivors 
went beyond the Mississippi, and when the Sauks re- 
moved there the two tribes became one and, as the "Sacs 
and Foxes'* of subsequent history, harried the people of 
southern Wisconsin and Illinois in the famous Black 
Hawk war. 

There can be no doubt that many battles had been 
fought in the valley of the Fox before white men came 
there, and, probably, some afterward, of which we have 
no tradition. When Allouez came to Green Bay, he was 
told of former wars between the Winnebagos and the 
Illinois Indians. About thirty years before, the Illinois 
had invaded the Winnebagos, and had captured the en- 
tire tribe, excepting one man, who escaped with an 
arrow in his body. But, for some reason, the captors 
had released their captives. In the days of Radisson. 
the Mascoutins "had warres" with the Sioux. The war 
party of the Outagamis. to whom Allouez told the story 
of Constantine, who painted crosses on their shields and 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 16 1 

rushed into the combat with the foe, making the sign of 
the cross, were going against the Sioux. It is probable 
that the warlike "Iroquois of the West," as the Sioux 
were sometimes called, returned the compliment some- 
times, and invaded the valley of the Fox. At the vil- 
lage of Eureka, near the river bank, there was a mound 
of earth, which the settlers there supposed was a natural 
conformation of the ground. Many years aeo it be- 
came necessary to excavate through a portion of this 
elevation for the purpose of a street. When the work- 
men were digging into the mound, suddenly they were 
surprised by a ciuantity of human bones which came 
tumbling out of the side of the excavation. These bones 
were probably the only memorial of some fierce battle 
at. or near, that snot. In the vicinitv and east of the old 
Mascontin stockade, called the "fort" by AHouez. there 
was another burial mound, and there were others in the 
vahey of the Fox and W r olf Rivers. Lake Winnebago 
was uninhabited in T670, at the time of Al 1 ouez' first 
visit, because the Sioux were much feared there. Doubt- 
less, the proves and the prairies of tin's region had often 
echoed with the war whoop of contending savap'es. The 
war parties of the Indians were usually a party of hunters 
for scalps and slaves. The prowess of a warrior was 
measured by the number of sca 1 ns he had t^k^n. The 
young men of a tribe were anxious to establish their 
reputations as warriors, and sometimes the o 1 der heads 
could not restrain them when they would. There is 



t6s Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

little doubt that some of the raids of the warlike Outa- 
gamis against the friends of the French, were in conse- 
quence of the ambition of hot-headed young men whom 
their elders would, but could not, restrain. The chiefs 
had no real authority. They were advisers and speak- 
ers of their tribes, or bands. But there was no real gov- 
ernment among them. The Foxes wanted Louvigny to 
leave an officer among them, to assist in restraining the 
young men. When Perrot was recalled from Green 
Bay, in 1699, they, with other tribes, petitioned for his 
return, the Foxes alleging that they had no sense when 
he was gone. 

The spirit of revenge was strong in the savage breast. 
The instinct of cruelty to captured enemies, cultivated 
by the practice of generation after generation, the desire 
to witness and gloat over the agonies of a victim at the 
stake, or tortured by all the horrible cruelties that sav- 
age ingenuity could invent, was difficult or impossible to 
eradicate. The Christian converts of the Jesuits were 
still savages. It was no part of the Jesuit plan to civil- 
ize them, unless it could be clone on the Paraguayan 
plan — by establishing among them a Theocracy, in 
which the civil and ecclesiastical administration should 
be altogether in the hands of the representatives of 
heaven, the Jesuits themselves. When Father Crespel 
(who was not a Jesuit), attempted to reason with the 
Christian Indians who burned the old man captured at 
Butte des Morts, by a slow fire, they only shrugged their 



Early History oj the Fox River Valley. /t>j 

shoulders and informed him that they would suffer in 
the same manner if captured by their enemies. Prob- 
ably these "Christians" had never heard of the golden 
rule. The fact seems to have been that the conversion 
of the Christian Indians amounted to littie, if anything, 
more than the exchange of one set of superstitions for 
another, (r). It is not probable that most of them com- 
prehended the import of the solemn rites of the church 
any more, or as much, as they did the grotesque incan- 
tations of their medicine men. It was more spectacular 
and, for that reason more attractive, perhaps. Ihe in- 
humanity of the pagan Outagamis, (among whom the 
seven years of labor of Allouez had made no lasting im- 
pression), in leaving an old man exposed to almost cer- 
tain torture, was no greater than that of the Christian 
Indians who iniiicted it. French brandy, English rum 
and American whiskey made their savage nature more 
savage, and they took to it by nature, but the civilization 
of the white men was repugnant to the Indian nature, 
and the higher the type of civilization, the more repug- 
nant it was. No higher examples of sublime devotion to 
a cause and an ideal than that of the Jesuit missionaries 
among the Indians, can be found. But the results 
demonstrated that the attempt to Christianize a people, 
without first civilizing them, to some extent, is futile. 



/ 64 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

NOTE TO CHAPTER XV. 

(1). An aged Ottawa woman of fair education and, 
herself, a devout and intelligent Catholic, stated to me a 
tradition among her people that before the missionaries 
came among them they were honest and firm believers 
in the traditions and superstitions of their ancestors, and 
tried to live uprightly, according to the standards of 
those traditions. She said that when the missionaries 
had shaken their faith in those traditions and prevailed 
on them to abandon their old beliefs, that, having lost 
Jheir old faith and not being well grounded in the new 
one, they drifted away from their former ideas of honesty 
and upright living and became worse, rather than better 
then they were before. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

JUST BEFORE THE GREAT WAR, 

It is necessary to a correct understanding of the 
events hereafter to be related, that a brief notice of tran- 
sactions far outside of the valley of the Fox should be 
given. All the wars between France and England, prior 
to the final struggle, which practically ended with the 
battle on the plains of Abraham, and the death of Mont- 
calm and Wolfe, had left the disputed question of the 
boundaries between the possessions of the two nations 
in America, unsettled. The French claimed the whole 
country west of the Alleghany mountains. The grants 
of the English colonies from the King, extended in- 
definitely westward, but the English government had 
been averse to permitting settlements west of the moun- 
tains, from fear that the colonies would grow too strong 
to be controlled. Their governors, sent from England, 
were already engaged much of the time in quarrels with 
the elective assemblies, and the growing spirit of repub- 
licanism was adverse to the claims of the kingly prero- 



i6b Early History otathe Fox River Valley. 

gative. which the governors were much disposed to 
assert. The French were endeavoring to establish a 
chain of fortified posts between Canada and the Gulf of 
Mexico, to confine the English colonies to the seaboard. 
Traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia had penetrated 
the valley of the Ohio and even reached the Mississippi, 
and the governor of Canada had sent a small force to 
warn them off from the French territory in 1753 and 
erected a fort where the city of Erie now stands; and 
cutting a road to French creek, a tributary of the Alle- 
ghany River, established a fort there. There Governor 
Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent George Washington, adju- 
tant general of the Virginia militia, with a letter sum- 
moning the invaders to withdraw from the territories of 
the King of England. At the mouth of French creek, 
Washington found a detachment of the French occupy- 
ing an English trading post, which they had seized and 
converted into an outpost, but he went on to Fort La- 
Eoeuf and delivered the governor's letter. Washington 
was treated with great courtesy by the French. Din- 
widdie had written to the home government, warning 
them of the danger, that the French would occupy the 
Ohio valley, and received authority from the King to 
build forts, at the expense of the colony and, if after 
warning, the intruders did not leave he was commanded 
to drive them away. Dinwiddie could not build forts 
and garrison them without money. The Burgesses 
would not appropriate money except with conditions 



Eariy History of (he fox River Valley. 167 

which Dinwiddie would not accept. He prorogued the 
house and, without waiting for an appropriation, 
ordered a draft of two hundred men from the militia and 
sent them in command of Washington, to erect a fort at 
the forks of the Ohio River. Washington's orders were, 
if any persons attempted to obstruct the work, to re- 
strain them and if they resisted to make prisoners of 
them,, or kill and destroy them. Virtually, this order of 
the governor of Virginia was a declaration of war, for he 
had every reason to believe that the plan would be re- 
sisted by the French. The Burgesses met again and 
voted ten thousand pounds for the defense of the colony. 
The territory invaded by the French was in dispute be- 
tween Virginia and Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania 
would do nothing. In February, 1754, Capt. Trent had 
crossed the mountains with a force of back woodsmen 
and commenced a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where 
the city of Pittsburg is now. He left forty men to com- 
plete it, under Ensign Ward. One day (April 7th), 
about five hundred French came down the Alleghany, 
planted cannon against the unfinished stockade and 
summoned Ward to surrender, on pain of what might 
ensue. He surrendered and was allowed to depart with 
his men. The invaders, having thus commenced the, as 
yet, bloodless war, proceeded to build the famous Fort 
Duquesne. Dinwiddie and Washington proceeded, ap- 
parently, on the theory that the capture of Ward's for- 
tification was the commencement of hostilities and that 



j 68 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

Canada and Virginia were at war. though the mother 
countries were not. Washington crossed the main 
range of the Alleghanies and encamped at a place called 
the great meadows. He had been informed that a force 
of the French had marched from their fort. Soon he 
was informed that they were seen at a point only 
eighteen miles away and sent a force of seventy-five men 
to look for them, but the}' were secreted so that thev 
could not be found. Then he was informed that tracks 
of two men were seen leading to a dark rocky glen in the 
forest. His informant was a friendly Indian chief, who 
expressed the belief that the French detachment were 
concealed there. Fearing some stratagem to surprise 
his camp, Washington made a night march through the 
forest with forty men to the camp of his Indian friend, 
leaving seven of his men who lost the way. in the dark- 
ness. The chief (known as the Half-King) joined him 
with a few men and then making their way to the glen, 
the French party were found there. They snatched their 
guns as the Virginians approached, whereupon Wash- 
ington gave the orckr to fire. A short fight ensued. 
The officer in commntid of the French detachment and 
nine of his men were killed. Twenty-two were captured 
and one Canadian escaped. I condense the facts of the 
affair as briefly as possible, from Chapter V, of Park- 
man's ''Montcalm and Wolfe," without touching upon 
the controversy as to the right or wrong, of the act of 
the young Virginian, who was destined to become the 



Early History of the Fox Kivcr Valky. i6g 

foremost Moure in the history of the Eighteenth century, 
That little band led by Washington, in the backwoods of 
Virginia fired the first volley of the long war, which set 
all Europe in a ferment and resulted, on this continent, 
in wresting Canada from the dominion of Erance and. 
through a succession of events, led to the .building up of 
a great Nation in the \ T ew World. 

Washington returned to the great meadows, sent 
messengers over the mountains for reinforcements and 
fortified his position as well as he could. Three com- 
panies arrived from Virginia and an independent com- 
pany from South Carolina. At this inadequate fortifica- 
tion called Port Necessity, Washington, with about 
three hundred and fifty men able to bear arms, was 
attacked by Coition de Villiers, son of the commandant 
at Green Bay, who was shot by the Sauk boy, with a 
force of seven hundred French and a large number of 
their [ndian allies and after nine hours fighting, de Vil- 
liers ofi L "ered terms of capitulation which were accepted. 
The next morning, July _ith, Washington and his forces 
marched out with the honors of war, with drums beat- 
ing, to make their way over the mountains, and the dis- 
puted territory was left in the hands of the French. 

In the meantime the two governments of France 
and England were exchanging diplomatic lies, by which 
neither was at all deceived, and both preparing- vigor- 
ously for war. France was preparing a fleet to dispatch 
with troops, to Canada. An English fleet sailed for the 



ifo Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

gulf of St. Lawrence, lo intercept it, and Gen. Braddock 
was sent to Virginia, with tw r o regiments of regulars. 

While the rather hot-headed young Virginian, 
George Washington, at the age of twenty-two, under 
the orders of the hard-headed Scotchman, who was the 
acting governor of Virginia, was lighting the fires of war 
in the wilderness behind the Alleghany mountains, 
which were soon to set all Europe, as well as the colo- 
nies in America arlame, another young man who was to 
take an active part in the war that followed, was at 
Green Bay : quietly bartering goods for furs and peltries 
with the Indians in that vicinity. He became known 
among the western tribes by the name of AU-KE-WIN- 
GE-KE-TAW-SO. (i). His name was Charles 
Michael de Langlade. His biography may be found in 
the recollections of Augustin Grignon (who was his 
grandson), in Volume III, of the Wisconsin Historical 
Collections: also in the "Memoirs of Charles de Lang- 
lade/' by Joseph, Tasse, of Ottawa, the Canadian his- 
torian. 

Augustin de Langlade, the father of Charles, was a 
licensed trader among the Indians and a resident, for 
many years at Mackinaw. There he married Domitilde, 
the widow of Daniel Villeneuve. She was a sister of Nis- 
sowaquet, the head chief of the Ottawas and had sev- 
eral children by her former marriage. This connection 
probably added to the influence of the Langlades among 
the Indians, which seems to have been great. 



Eariy History of the Fox River VaUey. iy i 

Of thi.. marriage Charles de Langlade was born, 
probably, as Grignon states, in \J2.\. Tasse found the 
record of his baptism at Mackinaw, which was dated in 
Mav, 17 jo. and therefore assumes that his birth was in 
that year. If so lie would have been not more than 
seventeen years old when he is said to have led the 
volunteer forces in the attack- on the Sauk village al 
Green Bay. Vfter the departure of the Jesuit Fathers 
from Mackinaw in 1705, when they burned their church 
to prevent its desecration, their 'locks having followed 
Cadillac to the new post at Detroit, there was no resi- 
dent priest at Mackinaw for a long time and the visits of 
a priest were only occasional. Pretty long intervals 
sometimes elapsed between such visits. ft probably 
happened frequently that the baptism of children was 
some years later than their birth. (2). Grignon men- 
tions sonu- incidents of the life of Charles de Langlade at 
Mackinaw, before the removal of the family to Green 
Bay, which indicate that he was then older than Tasse's 
date would make him. I think - it most probable that 
Grignon is correel and that the true date is 1724. When 
the lad was about ten vears old, he accompanied his 
uncle King Nissowaquet on the war-math. There was a 
tribe somewhere to the south, who were friends of the 
English, whom the ( )ttawas had twice attacked at their 
village which was ruled over bv a female chief. The 
French commandant was probably, anxious to be rid of 
such neighbors. Through some dream or omen. Nis- 



172 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

sowaquet was willing to make a third attempt, if his 
young nephew could accompany him. His father con- 
sented and charged the boy not to show any cowardice. 
With some other lads lie was placed in the rear out of 
danger, but in view of the right which followed. The 
battle impressed the boy as like a ball play. The suc- 
cess of this expedition led to his being taken on other 
expeditions and he became expert in all the ways of In- 
dian warfare and at an early age acquired great reputa- 
tion among both Indians and French. While he was a 
mere lad his father purchased for him, a commission in 
the French marine. This made him an officer and prob- 
ably liable at any time to be ordered into service. He 
certainly never acted in the naval service, but with his 
character, it may have been the cause of his early em- 
ployment in the service of the government as agent 
among the Indians and commander of the militia when 
in service. 

Washington's affair before mentioned was the first 
collision of troops acting under orders which preceded 
the Great War. But it was not the only, nor the first 
collision of armed men. In the long struggle of the 
French and English, for the control of the western fur 
trade, the English traders had penetrated to and down 
the ( >hio and the Indians of the Ohio valley were trad- 
ing with them. The expedition, before mentioned, sent 
bv the governor of Canada to warn the Enp-lish off. had 
warned them and buried numerous lead or tin plates 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. //j 

with the arms of France stamped thereon. The force 
was not strong enough to do more and returned. Eng- 
lish goods, better than those of the French, and Eng- 
lish rum which,, though not quite so palatable, would 
make an Indian drunk as readily as French brandy, were 
purchasing- the whole output of the valley of the Ohio 
and working their way rapidly up the tributaries of that 
river. The Miamis, who had gone over to the English 
alliance, had a town called Pickawillany on the Miami 
River. Their chief was called "old Britain" by the Eng- 
lish and "the Demoiselle" by the French and his town 
seemed to be a centre of disaffection towards the 
French. English traders resorted there in large num- 
bers. There were fears of a general outbreak of the 
western Indians, against the French. The commandant 
at Vincennes wrote that the French were leaving there 
because they did not want their throats cut. The Eng- 
lish traders were supposed to be inciting the Indians to 
violence. (3). The colonial minister wrote to the gov- 
ernor, to drive them away. The governor wrote Celeron 
de Bienville, who had warned off English traders and 
planted tin arms of France along down the Ohio val- 
ley, as before related, and was now in command at De- 
troit, to drive them away. Celeron de Bienville had no 
sufficient force without a large Indian contingent and 
the Indians near Detroit were uncertain and not to be 
relied upon. This was the condition in the spring of 
1752. The peril seemed imminent and the anxiety was 



jy 4 Earlv History of the Fox River Valley, 

great. It was relieved one day in June, when Charles de 
Langlade came paddling down from Mackinaw to De- 
troit, with a fleet of canoes manned by two hundred and 
fifty warriors, (Tarkman says Ottawas and Ojibways, 
but there were probably others also), and after stopping 
a while at Detroit, proceeded through the wilderness to 
Pickawillany. They reached it June 21st, and ap- 
proached it about nine o'clock in the morning. The 
Demoiselle was there with only a small band of warriors, 
most of them being absent on the summer hunt. Eight 
English traders were there. Five were captured, two 
escaped and one was killed. Fourteen Miami warriors 
were shot down, including the chief. Parkman says of 
de Langlade's followers: "Seventy years of mission- 
aries had not weaned them from cannibalism and they 
boiled and eat the Demoiselle." ("Montcalm and 
Wolfe," Vol. I, 85). Grignon speaks of many events 
related to him by his grandfather which had passed from 
his memory. Only such as occurred among the, to him, 
familiar scenes of Green Bay and Mackinaw, seem to 
have remained in his memory. Neither he nor Tasse 
make any mention of this expedition. Let no one con- 
clude from the military career of de Langlade that he 
was merely an educated savage. He was a leader of 
savages in war, and a trader, not a missionary, among 
them. Savages were used, on both sides in the wars in 
the colonies. They had to be used with all their savage 
customs, instincts and passions,' or they could not be 



Early Hstiory oj the Fox River Valley. ij 5 

used at all. Skilled as he was by his training and expe- 
rience in the management of the savages, to whom he 
was related, he was, himself, a civilized man, honest, as 
we shall see, loyal to every successive government under 
which he lived and trusted, successively, by the French 
and English, with important functions. 

What orders de Langlade was acting under at this 
time, does not appear. When he took his English pris- 
oners to Duquesne, the then new governor, he was 
highly praised, but the governor's recommendation, as 
to the reward to be given him, shows that Duquesne did 
not know the man. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XVI. 

(1). Grignon gives, "He who is fierce for the land," 
as the literal translation of this name. He interprets it 
to mean a conqueror. Mr. Porlier gives its meaning 
as, "A defender of his country," and also gives, k4 The 
bravest of the brave," as a title of Charles de Langlade, 
which was current in Indian tradition. (VIII, W. H. 
Coll., 230). 

(2). The family of Pierre Grignon were taken to 
Mackinaw in a canoe, after Augustin Grignon was old 
enough to remember the event, to have the children 
baptized by Father Payet, who was there on one of the 



ijb Early History of the. Fox River Valley. 

unfrequent visits of the missionaries to that place. (Ill, 
W. H. Coll.. 261). 

(3). In a letter to Rev. George Whitfield, in 1756, 
Franklin described the English traders as "the most 
vicious and abandoned wretches of onr nation. (Hins- 
dales Old North West, 127). 



CHAPTER XVII. 

DURING THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. 

The war which had been openly active in America 
for a year before, and covertly active in the struggle for 
the control of the fur trade, for several years, was not 
declared by England until May, and by France until 
June, t 756. The celebrated battle known as "Brad- 
dock's Defeat" was fought in July of the preceding year. 
When it was known that Braddock was about to ad- 
vance on Fort Duquesne with an army of 2.000 men, 
preparations were made for its defense. Charles de 
Langlade, who had been made a cadet in the military 
service (Tasse's Memoir, p. 30, note), was directed to re- 
port at Fort Duquesne with a force of the friendly tribes 
from the northwest. Probably he had. himself, carried 
the tomahawk, the emblem of war, among the tribes, 
and he led a large body of Ottawas, Chippewas, Meno- 
monees, Pottawatomies and others, to the assistance of 
their French Father. There were with him, also, some 



t?8 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

of the Couriers cle Bois, who were a numerous body 
along the upper lakes. Probably his uncle, Nissowa- 
quet, and the famous Pontiac were there. De Lang- 
lade's brother-in-law, Souligney, his nephew, Charles 
Gautier de Yerville, and several others named by Grig- 
non were among his followers. They arrived at the fort 
early in July. Grignon's impression was that his grand- 
father told him that there were but few other Indians 
there, and that the whole force of the French and Indians 
was about 1,500. The French garrison consisted of a few 
companies of soldiers and a considerable number of 
Canadian militia. When it was reported that the Eng- 
lish army was approaching, it was resolved to meet them 
outside of the fort, and an ambuscade was planned. 
Beaujeau, the second in command at the fort, who had 
formerly been a commandant at Green Bay. de Lig- 
nery's lieutenant in his expedition, against the Foxes, 
was to lead it. The advance column of Braddock was 
about 1.200 men, besides officers and drivers, and some 
artillery. The force which went out to meet them, under 
Beaujeau, acording to Parkman, was 637 of their Indian 
allies, 36 officers and cadets, 72 regular soldiers and 146 
( Canadians. 

On the 7th of July, the English force reached Turtle 
creek, about eight miles from the fort. The direct way 
was through a broken tract and a defile, very favorable 
for an ambuscade. To avoid this danger, they forded 
the Monongahela River twice. They crossed the river 



Early History oj the Fox River Valley. iyg 

the second time without opposition. Parkman says that 
the intention of Beaujeau, in the morning, was to am- 
buscade them at the crossing. He was a mile away 
when they crossed. There are some discrepancies in the 
account given by Langlade to his grandson and the 
accounts given by historians. They agree that the Eng- 
lish stopped at or near the river to take a luncheon. 
Here the acounts diverge. 

According to Parkman, they had finished their din- 
ner and were moving on through the forest with flankers 
out on both sides, and did not fall into an ambuscade; 
that some guides and light horsemen heard a musket 
shot ahead of the vanguard, stopped and fell back; that 
an engineer saw a man dressed like an Indian, but wear- 
ing the gorget of an officer, bounding along the path 
toward them; that when he saw the English, he turned 
and waved his hat and then the warwhoop was raised 
behind him, and the French and Indians spread to the 
right and left and opened a sharp fire from behind the 
trees. He explains the delay of Beaujeau, and his fail- 
ure to attack at the river crossing, by the statement that 
the Indians proved refractory and that three hundred of 
them went off in another direction and did not return 
until the English were across the river. De Langlade 
told his grandson that he went to Beaujeau and urged 
him to attack while the English were at dinner, and that 
Beaujeau made no reply; that he then called the chiefs 
together and urged them to demand that the attack be 



r8o Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

made, and that he made them no reply; that he then 
went again, himself, and urged the necessity of making 
the attack, if he intended to fight at all. According to 
Grignon, the remonstrance of Langlade was sharp and 
bitter. Beaujeau seemed disheartened when he saw the 
strength of the enemy and seemed in doubt what to do, 
but at length gave orders to attack. De Langlade told 
Grignon that some of the English officers who were 
killed had their napkins still pinned to their coats. Grig- 
non must have been mistaken, or remembered wrongly 
in one respect, for his statement seems to be that the 
English halt for dinner was before crossing the river, 
while the French and Indians were on the other side. 
Clearly, this could not have been so. It is not improba- 
ble that the attack on the advance was made before all 
had finished their dinner. The advance was in three 
bodies, with some interval between them. Possibly. 
Beaujeau meant to attack at the defile, which Braddock 
crossed the river to avoid, and found his plans frustrated 
by that movement. 

Beaujeau's Canadians tied at the first volley from the 
English, three hundred of whom wheeled into line and 
tired several volleys. Beaujeau's small force of regulars 
and officers could have offered but little obstacle to the 
English advance. He was killed at the third volley. 
The English, however, could not long maintain a steady 
line. From every little elavation of the ground, on 
either side, bullets were flying among them from an un- 



Earlv History of the Fox River Valley. 18 1 

seen enemy. A puff of smoke would rise • from the 
thicket and when the report readied the ear of a soldier 
who saw it, the bullet came with it. It was useless to 
fire at a puff of smoke. The warrior who raised it 
would be instantly safe behind a tree, reloading. The 
red coats of the regulars furnished a good mark for the 
hidden foe. 

When Braddock reached the front, his troops were 
beginning to be huddled together in the narrow way. 
dazed, confused luu] demoralized by this unusual kind of 
warfare. Idle blue-coated Virginians of his army were 
doing their best, seeking shelter and firing from behind 
trees, as the enemy did. It is almost incredible that 
Braddock, shocked by such unmilitary conduct, ordered 
them out to form in line. . The English had two cannons 
which were unlimbered and began firing into the woods. 
Parkman says that the Indians then imitated the Cana- 
dians, but returned to the fight. What they did was to 
change their positions for others aside from the line of 
fire of the battery. De Langlade said that more of his 
force were injured by falling branches cut from the trees 
by the cannon balls, than by the bullets of the English. 
It was in vain that Braddock rode up and down, swear- 
ing like the Armv in Flanders, and ordering his men to 
fight. They were willing to fight, if he would show them 
anybody to fight with. Washington, riding up and 
down, and probably not using language fit for a Sunday 
school, had two horses shot under him. Braddock had 



l8 2 Eariv History of the Fox River \'aliey % 

four and, as he was giving the signal to retreat, fell from 
his horse, mortally wounded. The victors did not follow 
them across the river. The army of Braddock was 
ruined. Dunbar, on whom the command devolved, 
marched the shattered remnant over the mountains to 
Fort Cumberland, and then to Philadelphia. 

Braddock's army was routed, not by the French, of 
whom not much more than a hundred did any fighting, 
but by their allies. Parkman cites the traveler. Anbury, 
and Gen. John Burgoyne, both writing years afterward 
— but while de Langlade was still alive — of Charles de 
Langlade as the author of Braddock's defeat. ("Mont- 
calm and Wolfe," Vol. II. p. 426). Extracts from both, 
on which ParkmarTs statement is founded, are given in 
Tasse's Memoir of de Langlade, page 133, and show 
that, in the opinion of English officers, in after years, de 
Langlade was entitled to the credit of defeating Brad- 
dock. 

But this is not the place to write the biography of the 
military hero of the Fox River Vallev, nor the history 
of the battles of that great war. De Langlade continued 
hi the service, with his faithful band, until the final 
struggle on the plains of Abraham and the fall of Que- 
bec. 1 1 ). In August, of the next year, he was again at 
Fori Dnquesne. Dumas, who had command of the 
French, after Beaujeau fell at the battle with Braddock. 
to whom the French accounts gave the glory for that 
victory, was then in command at the fort. His orders 



Early History ,1/ the Fo* River Valley. 183 

directing "Sieur de Langlade. Ensign of Infantry/' 
upon scouting duty, and his subsequent services, are 
detailed by Tasse. In 1757. he went down from Macki- 
naw with several hundred Indians and French, to join 
Montcalm, lie was active in the campaign that sum- 
mer. On the 8th of September, Vaudreuil appointed 
"Sieur Langlade, Ensign of troops detached from the 
marine^." second in command at "Michillimacinac." 

Tasse show- thai Grignon was mistaken as to de 
Langlade's presence at the battle of Ticonderoga, as he 
was serving as sponsor for an infant, born at "Fond du 
Lac," and baptized at Mackinaw, July 2nd, only seven 
days before that battle. In 1759, de Langlade again 
joined the forces of .Montcalm. De la Verendie and de 
Langlade brought to Montcalm 1,200 "Kristinaux, 
Sioux. Sacs, Menomonees, Chippewas and Foxes." In 
the memoir of de Langlade, the fact seems to be abund- 
antly established by authority, that he at one time had, 
with nine hundred Indians (and probably, bushrangers), 
ambushed about 2,000 of Wolfe's army who had pushed 
a reconnoissance into the woods dangerously near to the 
French left wing, and went twice to M. de Lexis, the 
commander of that wing, to urge him to send a French 
force to commence an attack. Fear of the possibility of 
bringing on a general engagement without the sane 
tion of his superior officers, deterred Levis from com- 
plying quickly enough, and the Indians, becoming im- 
patient after lying in ambush for five hours, fired one 



/£j Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

volley, killing a large number of the English, and then 
retreated, as they did not consider their number suffi- 
cient to fight a battle alone. Had Levis ordered the ad- 
vance, it is not improbable that the disaster at the 
Monongahela might have been repeated. Possibly, it 
might have saved Quebec and Canada, for the time. 
Not for long, however, for while the English were con- 
stantly augmenting their forces in America, the famous 
Pompadour, the concubine of the King, who dictated 
the policy of France, had caused Canada to be left 
mainly to her own population for her defense, while the 
power of the King was engaged in the coalition against 
the great Erederick of Prussia. Louis XV, who while he 
lacked the wisdom of Solomon, could vie with that 
monarch in his luxuries, extravagance, and the heavy 
hand laid upon his people, was too busy sowing the wind 
from which his unfortunate successor was to reap the 
whirlwind, to give overmuch care to his loyal subjects, 
white and red, in America. In the meantime, his officers 
of all grades, from Governor and Intendent down, were 
robbing him and his red ''children" without conscience. 
Indians never took up the hatchet for their French 
"father" until they had received ample presents. Large 
purchases of goods would be made by the officers, at 
fabulous prices, and charged to the King, for presents to 
the Indians. A third of them would be given to the 
savages and the rest sold to them for furs. They were 
all fur traders. The rottenness of the whole administra- 



Earlv History of the Fox River Valley. r8 5 

tion of affairs in Canada is depicted in ('hap. XVII, of 
Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe." At Green Bay the 
gallant Marin, one of the best partisan officers in the ser- 
vice, and a brother of the governor, who was his partner, 
made a profit of 312,000 francs in a short time. 

It is in refreshing contrast to this wholesale specula- 
tion and corruption that we learn that Charles de Lang- 
lade had an account, which he rendered four times, 
always in the same terms, and had it returned to him 
three times for correction; the third time with the infor- 
mation that if it were three or four times as much, the 
King was able to pay it, and that he again returned the 
same account with the statement that it was correct. (2). 

The old maxim of "like master, like man," found 
abundant illustration in the administration. The luxury, 
extravagance and debauchery of Versailles were imi- 
tated at Quebec and Montreal. If the charges cited by 
Parkman were true, some of the highest officials of 
Canada imitated the conduct of King David toward 
Uriah the Hittite. 

The wonderful thing in all that history is, that the 
officers who would rob the King one daw without 
scruple, would tight for him the next with a zeal and 
vigor unexcelled. 

De Langlade was with the army of Montcalm on the 
fatal 17th of September, 1759, on the plains of Abraham. 
One of his companions, De Gere, related that at one 



t86 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

time during the hottest of the battle, de Langlade's gun 
became so heated that he had to stop to let it cool. He 
drew his pipe and tobacco from his pocket, filled his pipe 
and lighted it with a flint and steel as calmly as though 
no battle were raging around him. Two half brothers of 
de Langlade were killed there. After the surrender of 
Quebec, he went back to Mackinaw, and on his return 
to Canada, in the spring, received a commission issued 
by the King, dated February ist, 1760, appointing him 
a lieutenant. In September of that year, Vaudreuil, 
having no further hope of successful resistance to the 
English, issued an order to "Sieur de Langlade, half-pay 
lieutenant of the troops of the colony, whom we have 
charged with the superintendence of the Indian nations 
of the Upper Country," to take charge of the Indians 
on their return to their villages, and of two companies 
of English deserters, who were making their way to 
Louisiana. This order was dated September 3rd. He 
was followed to Mackinaw by a communication from 
the governor, dated six days later, announcing the final 
surrender of New France to the English, with an ex- 
planation of the reasons which compelled it and the 
terms. 

The Fox River Valley was too remote from the seat 
of hostilities in the ''French and Indian War," as it is 
called, to be the scene of any important historical events. 
About the only one recorded, is that Marin, command- 
ing at Fort St. Francis, at Green Bay, and the brother 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. iSy 

of the governor, made 312,000 francs in a very short 
time, stealing from the King whom they served. But 
that must have been early in the war. There was no 
garrison at that point for a long time before the war was 
over. All the soldiers were more needed elsewhere. We 
can imagine Charles de Langlade going among the In- 
dians, with the tomahawk in one hand and the one-third, 
or so, of the gifts intended for them which had not been 
stolen by the officials before they reached his hands, en- 
listing them to join the forces with which he was to de- 
feat Braddock's army. 

In the history of the scandalous frauds and corrup- 
tion which pervaded the administration of Canada in the 
reign of Louis XV, there was one little scheme, which, 
if it had succeeded, would have been important to Green 
Bay and the valley of the Fox River. In 1759, when the 
King of France would furnish no troops to meet the in- 
creasing strength of the English, and had so exhausted 
his resources and credit that he could not well furnish 
any more funds for his servants in the province to prey 
upon, Vaudreuil, in October, made a grant to M. 
Rigaud and Mme. de Vaudreuil of the fort at "La Baye 
des Puants," with an extensive territory in which the 
grantees were to have the exclusive right of trade, with 
liberty to erect houses and make improvements thereon. 
As this would cost the King nothing, and the French 
power was then tottering to its fall, the King confirmed 
the grant in January following. This grant was sold by 



. rly History of the Fox River Valley. 

the grantees to one William Grant. When the claims 
under French grants were being adjusted, it was so 
palpably a mere gratuity that it was rejected without 
very much ceremony. (See "Smith's Documentary 
History of Wisconsin." Vol. 1. pp. 128, 350). 

( rreat changes had occurred in the location of the 
Indian tribes, since the early days of the bushrangers 
ami Jesuit missionaries. The Mascoutins and Kickapoos 
had removed to the month of the Rock River, about the 
clo>e of the Seventeenth century. The Foxes and 
Sauks had been expelled from the valley of the Fox, as 
before related. The Winnebagos had moved up the 
river before the expedition of de Lignery, in 1728. 
Some or the Menomonees had moved down from the 
Menomonee River and were in the vicinity of Fort St. 
Francis, they and the Winnebagos being the only tribes 
remaining on the Fox River. Parkman's map, in the 
first volume oi "The Conspiracy of Pontiac." locates 
these two tribes as indicated, the Winnebagos in the 
vicinity of Lake Winnebago and south. The same map 
locates the Sauks (the Sacs) on the Wisconsin and the 
Outagamis east oi the Mississippi and north of the Wis- 
consin. The Pottawatomies, who formerly occupied 
the inlands at the entrance to Green Bay and the penin- 
sula of Door County, are located in the vicinity of St. 
Joseph, east of the south end of Lake Michigan, with 
the Ottawa- north of them, in the Michigan peninsula. 



Early History r>t the Fox River Valley. i8g 

The Kickapoos are located on the tributaries of the Illi- 
nois River, west of Chicago. 

The Mascoutins, among whom John Nicolet found 
a hospitable reception: with whom Radisson and Grosil- 
liers spent a considerable time and found them "tall and 
bigge and very strong:" whom AUouez found so ready 
to receive the gospel of the Jesuits; among whom Mar- 
quette and Joliet spent two days acquiring information 
before pushing on into unknown regions: who hunted 
wild cattle and buffaloes on the prairies of Winnebago. 
Green Lake and Fond du Lac Counties; the afterward 
allies of the Outagamis in their raid on Detroit; had dis- 
appeared from maps and from history. The remnant 
had probably united with the Kickapoos. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XVII. 

(i). A recent writer on Wisconsin History says: 
"At the bloody massacre at Fort William Henry, the 
braves of Langlade were at the front." (Legler's 
"Leading events in Wisconsin History," p. 114V This 
is probably a mistake. Parkman says that the massacre 
at that fort in 1758, was by the Abenaki (Kennebec) 
Indians, who were Christians. I "Montcalm and Wolfe," 
L 514 notes). Indeed, it seems, from Tasse's memoir, 
cited in what follows that Langlade and his warriors 
were not with Motcalm in the campaign of that year, 



*9° Early History of the Pox River Valley. 

(2). While he was in the service of the English, in 
1777, Major De Peyster expressed the opinion that he 
was ''strictly honest and quite disinterested, but that he 
was rather too liberal to the Indians. (VII, W. H. Coll., 
406). 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

ENGLISH OCCUPATION. — PONTIAC— MASSACRE AT 
MICHILLIMACINAC DE LANGLADE. 

For ninety years the semi-military and fully com- 
mercial expeditions of the French had been traversing 
the lakes, rivers, forests and prairies of the west and 
northwest, accompanied everywhere by the Jesuit, or 
the Franciscan priest, ever and anon erecting a cross 
and, beside it, a post, to which a tin or lead plate with 
the arms of France embossed thereon was nailed; or, 
when the times were too perilous to admit of much cere- 
mony, as in the case of Celeron de Bienville, burying the 
lead plates in the ground at intervals. From time to 
time, with great ceremony, at Sault Ste. Marie, at Lake 
Pepin, near the mouth of the Mississippi, and even be- 
yond the great river, taking formal possession of all 
within the range of vision, or known or suspected to 
exist anywhere beyond that range, save the strip along 
the seaboard occupied by the English and the countries 



fQ3 Early History of the Fox River Val 1 ^ 

south, occupied by the Spaniards. Process-verbal after 
process-verbal, solemnly attested by notaries taken 
along- for the purpose, had been filed in the archives of 
France. The demoralizing effect of relying upon the 
fur trade alone as a resource; of the double-headed srov- 
ernment of the colony, and the poison of the universal 
corruption which, pervaded the administration in the 
colonies and a1 home, paved the way for the genius of 
the great commoner. William Pitt, to bring it all to 
naught. 

The surrender of Vaudreuil to Amherst included a 
few small cities and villages along the St. Lawrence, and 
a goodly number of scattered and isolated posts in the 
wilderness. 

Unfortunately, Vaudreuil could not transfer to the 
English the French adaptability and genius for dealing 
with the savage tribes, who occupied the territory trans- 
ferred, nor the good will of the savages themselves. 

Small English garrisons were sent to occupy all the 
military posts. In 1761. Captain George Etherington, 
with a small garrison, took possession of Michillimaci- 
nac, and on the 12th of October of that year, came Cap- 
tain Balfour, of the Eightieth, and Lieutenant James 
Gorrell, of the Sixtieth Royal Americans, and invaded 
the valley of the Fox, by taking possession of the dilapi- 
dated Fort St. Francis, at the mouth of that river. Cap- 
tain Balfour remained long enough to run up the British 
colors over the old fort and re-christen it with the sonor- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. iqj 

ous title of Fort Edward Augustus. He soon took his 
departure, leaving Lieutenant Gorrell, with a garrison 
of one sergeant, one corporal and fifteen soldiers, to 
guard and protect the interests of his majesty, George 
III, in all the region from the entrance of Green Bay to 
the Mississippi River. 

Lieutenant Gorrell seems to have been one of the 
few examples of the right man in the right place, which 
the English occupation showed at that time. It is 
apparent that the great mass of the Indians still believed 
that their great father, the King of France, had been 
sleeping and let the English steal a march upon him; 
that he would arouse and yet drive the hated English 
from the lands of his children. It is not unlikely that the 
traders and bushrangers fostered this belief, for they had 
reason to fear the competition of the English traders, 
who, by the better bargains which they offered, had for 
many years made serious inroads upon the trade of the 
French. But that trade had been carried on la-rgely 
through the Iroquois, or a class as reckless and more 
reckless and abandoned, than the gay and fraternizing 
bushrangers of the French. When the English trader of 
another class began to come among them, the difference 
between their manners and those of such men as the 
Langlades and other French traders of the period, was 
too marked to escape the notice of the Indians. Too 
many of the officers sent among them by the English 
were disposed to treat them with a cool superciliousness 



1Q4 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

or haughty contempt. Lieutenant Gorrell bent all his 
energies, apparently, to the conciliation of the savages 
and to securing their friendship. 

Green Bay was the point of supply for the Menomo- 
nees, who now resided in the immediate vicinity, the 
Winnebagos then around Lake Winnebago, the Sacs 
(as the Sauks are known in later history), who were on 
the Wisconsin, the remnant of the Outagamis, who were 
near or with the Sacs, and the hordes of the Dacotahs, 
or Sioux. Gorrell estimated that 39,000 warriors be- 
sides their women and children, depended on that place 
for their supplies. This represented an enormous traffic, 
and two English traders came with the garrison, with 
large outfits of goods for that trade and took up their 
quarters in the fort. The de Langlades, when they 
established themselves at Green Bay, in T744 or 1745, 
probably did not abandon their post at Mackinaw, where 
the registers continued to show them residents for many 
years. Charles de Langlade, who was second in com- 
mand there when the post was transferred to the Eng- 
lish, was there in 1763, as will appear hereafter. It is 
°*^id that when the Erench traders heard of the small 
English force that was coming to Green Bay, they tried 
to induce the Indians to attack and massacre them when 
they arrived, and that their young men were willing, but 
that under the advice of a wise o 1 d Sac chief, they re- 
frained and went on the winter hunt instead. 

Gorrell assembled the chiefs in council, made them 



Eariy History oj the Fox River Valley. /qj 

speeches and (which was probably more to the purpose) 
made them considerate presents, a coarse which had 
been advised by Sir William Johnson. By his address 
and presents, Gorrell seems to have secured the good 
will of the Menomonees at least. 

During this period of Lieutenant Gorrell's com- 
mand, there was reasonable harmony between the Eng- 
lish and the natives. Gorrell's journal of the time is the 
principal source of information on the subject. It is 
published in the first volume of the Wisconsin Histori- 
cal Collections. 

The French traders at the various posts were re- 
quired to take an oath of allegiance to the new authority 
as a condition of continuing their business of trade with 
the Indians. The terms of the capitulation guaranteed 
to the inhabitants all their civil and religious rights un- 
der the law as it existed at the time. At Green Bay the 
only perceptible change was the presence of the small 
English garrison and English, as well as French traders. 
Of course, the few French settlers and the voyageurs 
and bushrangers everywhere were not pleased with the 
change, and, until the final treaty was ratified and 
promulgated among them it is probab 1 e that most of 
them really indulged the belief that the King of France 
would yet arouse and drive away the interlopers. They 
seem to have fostered this idea among the Indians. 

There is preserved an order of Captain Etherington, 
dated April 13th, 1763, giving permission to the Lang- 



r<p6 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

lades to remain at the post at La Baye and that no per- 
son should interrupt them on their voyage thither, with 
their wives, children, servants and baggage, but it is cer- 
tain that Charles de Langlade and his family were at 
Mackinaw in the early part of June of the same year. 

In those days, Pontiac was the head chief of the 
Ottawas. Grignon says that he had always understood 
that Pontiac was a Huron. He may have been an 
Ottawa by adoption. He had served with de Langlade 
at the Monongahela and probably elsewhere. A brave 
warrior, an eloquent orator, more resolute and perse- 
vering than most Indians, and greatly superior in men- 
tal capacity and intelligence to any other chief of his 
time, he was especially fitted to become the leader of his 
race, in a desperate struggle, against the inevitable 
domination of the hated race, many of the more intelli- 
gent of the natives could see, threatened destruction to 
their race. By virtue of his superior intelligence, Pon- 
tiac combined with superiority in the nobler character- 
istics of his race an equal superiority in their ignoble 
qualities. In cunning trickery and sneaking treachery, 
he excelled them all. He conceived the idea of combin- 
ing all the tribes in a simultaneous attack upon the gar- 
risoned posts, to be followed by carrying fire and the 
tomahawk among the settlements of the English and 
driving them from the hunting grounds, which they had 
invaded with axes and the tools and implements of 
civilization. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. r$? 

Now, there was congregated at "Milwaky," on the 
shore of Lake Michigan a village of Indians from many 
tribes, who had a bad reputation, and to them, among 
others, Pontiac had carried, or sent, the war-belt and the 
red hatchet, to enlist them in his schemes. To this mot- 
ley band was assigned the destruction of the post at 
Green Bay, and up from Milwaukee came Wau-pe-se- 
pin (the wild potato), a prominent Menomonee, who 
had been visiting there, bearing a red belt to the Meno- 
monees to invite them to join in the capture and destruc- 
tion of fort Edward Augustus and its little garrison. At 
the house of Pierre Grignon, this emissary of Pontiac 
met Old Carron, the half breed son of a French trader 
and interpreter for "the Old King," Chau-kau-cho-ka- 
ma, the head chief of the Menomonees. Carron was 
brother-in-law to the emissary and, knowing the pur- 
pose he had in view, rebuked him in such round terms 
that he proceeded no farther in the business. 

The Menomonees were friendly to both French and 
English, and never shared the hatred, which many of the 
tribes cherished against the latter. They were a strong 
vigorous people and brave warriors, but from the first 
advent of white men in the country were noted for their 
more peaceful disposition than other tribes showed. 
They were several shades lighter in complexion than the 
other Algonquin tribes and spoke a dialect differing con- 
siderably from that of the others. From the first they 
were friendly with the white men and even the wanton 



tq8 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

attack made on them by cle Lignery-s expedition did not 
seem to produce any permanent estrangement. They 
were the most intelligent of all the tribes among whom 
Allouez and Andre labored, excepting the Miamis then 
with the Mascoutins. They, almost alone, w r ere never 
guilty of treachery toward their white friends. 

Pontiac, with a host of Ottawas, Chippewas, Potta- 
watomies and Hurons, (known in the subsequent history 
as the Wyandots), commenced the siege of Detroit in 
May, 1763. Charles de Langlade was at Mackinaw. He 
had learned of the gathering storm and repeatedly 
warned Captain Etherington to be on his guard against 
a surprise. Etherington called the chiefs of the Chip- 
pewa village into council and they gave solemn assur- 
ances of friendship. De Langlade repeated his warnings 
until Etherington became impatient and told him to 
come no more with such old woman's tales. Laurent 
Ducharme, a Canadian warned him in strong terms, but 
he turned a deaf ear and refused to see Ducharme a 
second time. Even Alexander Henry, an English tra- 
der, who had arrived there just before the soldiers, 
heard the rumors of an attack on the fort and expressed 
his fears to Etherington. The infatuated officer, who, 
evidently, knew nothing of the Indian character, gave 
no heed to the warnings of those who did, and trusted 
implicitly to the solemn pledges of those chiefs who were 
only waiting their opporunity to destroy him. He was 
not alone, however in this reckless dependence on In - 



Eariy History of the fiox River Valley, rgg 

dian pledges. Major Gladwyn, at Detroit had been 
scarcely less confident, upon the assurance of Pontiac 
himself, that no mischief was contemplated. 

Gradual accessions came to the warriors at the Chip- 
pewa village near the fort at Mackinaw until they were a 
large force. The 4th of June, which was the King's 
birthday, was to be properly celebrated, and the Chip- 
pewas requested permission to play an Indian ball game 
with some Sacs who were there, on the level space in 
front of the fort. Etherington readily granted the per- 
mission and proposed to bet on the Chippewas. There 
is some discrepancy in the accounts of what followed. 
Alexander Henry's statement, (published more than 
forty years later) is, that the gates of the fort stood open 
all the morning. Grignon's statement on the authority 
of de Langlade, who was there, is that the players pur- 
posely sent the ball over the palisades, several times and 
the soldiers within sent it back; that Etherington then 
ordered the gates opened so that they could get the ball 
for themselves. Many of the squaws went into the fort. 
When the ball again went over the palisades the savages 
rushed in great numbers after it and taking from the 
squaws the tomahawks and weapons which they had 
concealed under their blankets, attacked the soldiers, 
who had no arms ready to resist. Seventeen soldiers, 
including Lieutenant Jamet, who defended himself vig- 
orously with his sword, and an English trader, named 
Tracy, were cut down at once. The rest were made 



seo Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

prisoners and five of them were afterward killed. Cap- 
tain Etherington and Lieutenant Leslie, who were out- 
side of the fort watching the game of ball, were seized 
and made prisoners. De Langlade and many of the 
French residents witnessed the terrible tragedy — Park- 
man seems to think with utter indifference, trusting to 
the authority of Alexander Henry. This is hardly just. 
Parkman certainly knew, as Henry probably did not. 
that those men who had lived long among the Indians 
and were familiar with all their ways, were as much 
habituated as the savages themselves to concealing any 
emotions in times of peril. The Chippewas were not one 
of the tribes among whom de Langlade's influence was 
the greatest. Some of them had probably served under 
him in the war, and if he had attempted any interference, 
in their infuriated condition doubtless it would have been 
at the peril of the lives of himself and his family, and 
without any effect, except to render them still more in- 
furiated. 

The Chippewas took Captain Etherington and 
Lieutenant Leslie into the forest. Grignon's statement 
is, that after some deliberation the Chippewas prepared 
to burn the two officers at the stake. The fuel was pre- 
pared and the victims bound to the stakes, but before 
the torch was applied, Charles de Langlade, with some 
friendly Indians, probably Ottawas, from L' Arbor, 
Croche, appeared and, without a word proceeded to cut 
the cords that bound them. Then turning to the 



Early History of the Fox River Valley, 20 r 

astonished Chippewas, lie said: "If you are not content 
with what ! have done. I am ready to meet you." Then 
lie told Captain Etherington, that it he had given more 
heed to Langlade's "old woman's tales." he would not 
have been in such a position, with most of his men mur- 
dered. Henry, the English trader, was outside of the 
fort when the slaughter began and ran for protection to 
the house of de Langlade. His version is that de Lang- 
lade shrugged his shoulders and saying, "What do you 
suppose that 1 can do?" turned away to look out of the 
window, but a Pawnee slave girl, who belonged to de 
Langlade, beckoned to him to follow and led him to a 
hiding place on the premises. Henry, in his ignorance 
would not know, but one would think that Parkman, 
who follows Henry's account, would have known that it- 
was essential in de Langlade's situation, that he should 
keep up the appearance of indifference, at least until he 
had some force at hand which he could control. It is 
utterly improbable that the Pawnee girl secreted Henry 
without some intimation or knowledge, that her act 
would not be disapproved by her master. When he let 
Henry be taken from his granary afterward, because of 
the fears and solicitations of his wife under intense fear 
for the safety of her children, he arranged that Henry 
should be left at his house. De Langlade was not likely 
to be free from human faults, but he was not an inhuman 
man. Henry accuses de Langlade of refusing to furnish 
him a blanket, when the stripped, but then released, pris- 



sq2 Early History of the Fox River t^aliey. 

oners were about to embark in canoes in a cold storm, 
unless he would furnish security for payment. A blan- 
ket was furnished him by another man and it is quite 
within the bounds of possibility that it was de Lang- 
lade's blanket. He had gone so far in a case of extreme 
and pressing emergency, to save the lives of the officers, 
that, doubtless, it behooved him to avoid any appearance 
of open sympathy with the English. 

The prisoners were left in the fort almost, or entirely, 
unguarded, with the Canadians who were entirely neu- 
tral, while the Chippewas had what, in the west is known 
as "a big drunk." 

A force of the Christian Ottawas from L' Arbor 
Croche, twenty miles away, came and with them Father 
Dejaunay, a good man and worthy successor of Mar- 
quette. What followed is interesting but does not be- 
long to this history. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

WHAT FOLLOWED IN THE FOX RIVER VALLEY. 

The article on "The Capture of Macinaw," in the 
eighth volume of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, 
by Louis B. Porlier, of Butte cles Morts, shows a tradi- 
tion of the Menomonees that all the Wisconsin tribes, 
except theirs, joined in the conspiracy of Pontiac. It 
does not appear that the Sacs who were engaged in the 
ball game with the Chippewas, took any part in the 
attack on the fort at Macinaw, or what became of them 
when the attack was made. Parkman shows that in a 
few days after the massacre, the Chippewas became very 
uneasy as to the consequences of what they had done. 
The Ottawas had got possession of their prisoners, ex- 
cepting the trader, Henry, who was adopted by a chief 
of the Chippewas, in place of a brother, whom he had 
lost in the late war. They retired to the island of Maci- 
naw. Pontiac sent messengers urging them to his assist- 
ance at Detroit, which he was vainly trying to capture, 
but they did not go. Their martial ardor had departed. 



204 Early History of the Fox River Valley, 

The article of Mr. Porlier, referred to, gives a Menomo- 
nee tradition, which, if based on fact, may account for 
their sudden loss of enthusiasm, and their fears. That 
tradition is that their superstitions incantations, before 
the outbreak, had revealed that for success it was neces- 
sary that they should make a sacrifice of the officers. a1 
the first post captured. Other posts had been taken, but 
they did not know it. Captain Etherington and Lieu- 
tenant Leslie were to be the sacrifice and the act of 
Charles de Langlade had prevented the fulfillment of this 
requirement of their superstition. It is well known that 
signs and omens and the revelations of such incanta- 
tions cut a large figure in Indian warfare. 

On the [5th of June an Ottawa messenger brought 
to Gorrell at Fort Edward Augustus, a letter from 
Etherington, relating the misfortunes which had befal- 
len him and ordering Gorrell to report to him, with his 
whole garrison at L'Arbor Croche, twenty miles from 
the post of Macinaw. 

Gorrell called a council of the Menomonees, in- 
formed them of what the Chippewas had done and that 
he was going with his soldiers, to restore order, and 
commended the fort to their care during his absence. 
Soon after large numbers of Winnebagos. Sacs and 
Foxes arrived (who had probably heard the news), and 
he addressed them in similar terms. Only a few ex- 
hibited an}- signs of hostility. Fortunately then came 
messengers from the Dacotahs (Sioux), to the Green 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 203 

Bay Indians informing them that the Dacotahs had 
heard of the bad conduct of the Chippewas. They hoped 
the tribes of Green Bay would not follow that example, 
but would protect the English garrison. If they did not, 
the Dacotahs would attack them and take revenge. The 
Chippewas being hereditary enemies of the Dacotahs, 
the news that they had attacked the English was enough 
to bring the Dacotahs to the rescue. This was fortunate 
for Gorrell and his little force. The friendly Indians 
offered to furnish him an escort. After making the pro- 
per presents on the 21st of June, Gorrell, with his sol- 
diers, interpreter and the English traders embarked in 
batteaux and were escorted by ninety Menomoiiee war- 
riors in canoes, to L' Arbor Croche. Upon an alarm of 
an ambush by the Chippewas at an island at the entrance 
to Green Bay, the Menomonee warriors stripped for 
battle and sang a war song, but the alarm proved false. 
The Ottawas held the English, eleven in number, as 
prisoners, but treated them with kindness. They were 
released on the request of the Green Bay warriors. All 
the English started for Montreal a few days later, escort- 
ed by a fleet of warriors in canoes and arrived at Mon- 
treal in August. 

Captain Etherington turned over the command of 
the fort at Macinaw, to Charles de Langlade. No Eng- 
lish being left there, no danger remained of any trouble 
from the Indians, with whom the Canadians there had 
fraternized always. It is probable that de Langlade did 



206 Early History of the Fox River Vaiiey. 

not remain long there, before returning to Green Bay, 
from which he had been absent most of the time during 
the "French and Indian war." Early, under the English, 
he was again in his o 1 d position of superintendent of the 
Indians in the Green Bay district. 

After GorreH's departure, more than half a century 
elapsed before any flag floated over a garrison at Green 
Bay. Then it was the stars and stripes. 

If as the Menomonee tradition above referred to, 
implies, the other Fox River tribes were disposed to 
take part in the war of Pontiac against the English, the 
threat of the Dacotahs (Sioux), was doubtless effectual 
to keep them quiet. There were no English near to 
them. There were no white men except the few traders 
at La Baye. Peace and tranquility reigned through all 
their borders. The border warfare which raged along 
the western fringe of the English colonies with such cir- 
cumstances of crue 1 ty and savage ferocity, on both sides 
as still make one shudder with horror, in reading of 
them, was so remote that it produced no effect in the 
peaceful val'ey of the Fox. 

When the English re-occupied posts which had been 
captured by the Indians, after Pontiac gave up the seige 
of Detroit, they omitted to send another garrison to 
Fort Edward Augustus. It is probable that Char'es de 
Lang 1 ade returned to Green Bay, not very long after the 
massacre at Macinaw. The French who remained there 
until another English garrison arrived, after peace had 



Early Hstwry of the Fox River Valley. 20j 

been established, needed no protection and his employ- 
ment by the English authorities, seems to have been as 
superintendent of the Indians of the Green Bay district 

only. 

In 1766, on the 18th of September, there arrived at 

Green Bay, Captain Jonathan Carver, a man of experi- 
ence and a close observer, with large projects in his* 
mind and merchandise in his canoes, for trade with the 
Indians, on his way to the upper Mississippi, by the Fox- 
Wisconsin route. For three years he trafficked among 
the Sioux, procured from them a grant of a large tract 
of land, under which his heirs and their assigns, for a 
century or so, have been claiming title to several coun- 
ties in northwestern Wisconsin and Minnesota. The 
curious may find full information about the famous 
"Carver Grant," with a copy of his famous deed in 
Smith's Documentary History of Wisconsin, Vol. Ill, 
pp. 265-282. There was no garrison, but a few families 
were living in Fort Edward Augustus and a few settlers 
on the east side of the river opposite to the fort. There 
is little information as to the condition of the Fox River 
Valley at this period, except what is derived from the 
narrative of Captain Carver. 

He found what seems to have been the principal vil- 
lage of the Winnebagos — a palisaded village with about 
fifty houses — situated on Doty's island, which is now 
included in the cities of Neenah and Menasha, at the 
outlet of Lake Winnebago. They had then a smaller 



208 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

village at some point about forty miles up the river. The 
whole number of their warriors was about two hundred. 
Carver found the head chief,, or "queen," as he calls her, 
of the town on Doty's island, a woman. She was the 
widow of a French trader, said to have been DeKaury, 
ancestor of the DeKaury's, who were afterward promi- 
nent among the Winnebagos. She was an old woman 
and entertained Carver four days with great hospitality. 
When he ''saluted" the old lady, as he frequently did "to 
acquire her favor," she would assume an air of juvenile 
gayety and smile upon him apparently well pleased with 
such attentions. Her maidens, who attended her, also 
exhibited great pleasure at witnessing these oscillatory 
tokens of regard. The second day Carver was at the vil- 
lage, he got a council of the chiefs together and for- 
mally requested permission to pass through their coun- 
try. This pleased them, probably because many were 
passing through it without asking permission. They 
gravely and solemnly granted the permission. From 
his investigations, Carver concludes that the Winne- 
bagos came from some of the provinces of New Mexico, 
for which he gives his reasons. Their dialect was so 
different from that of the Algonquins that they had to 
converse with other tribes in the Chippewa tongue, 
which seems to have been the polite language of all the 
northern tribes, as the French is, or was, in Europe. 
From Carver's account it appears that they had im- 
proved in their agriculture since Allouez' time. 



Eariy Historv of the Fox Rn>er Vahev. 2og 

After crossing the portage, Carver found the Sauks 
(at Sauk prairie on the Wisconsin), settled in the largest 
and best built Indian village he had ever seen. Their 
business was largely hunting Pawnees and Illinois for 
slaves. Pawnee slaves were numerous among the vari- 
ous tribes and the Sauks appear to have been engaged in 
supplying the demand for them. 

After the departure of Gorrell and his small force 
from Green Bay, the valley of the Fox was left to its own 
peaceful, uneventful solitude until the breaking out of 
the Revolution. The few traders at Green Bay, and 
their clerks and employes and slaves, were its only popu- 
lation, excepting the Monomonees and Winnebagos. 
Peace and harmony seemed to reign in the valley. 
Mackinaw was the great trading point of the upper 
lake region. Doubtless, many canoes passed up and 
down between the lakes and the Mississippi, and the 
song of the light-hearted "voyageur" often waked the 
echoes along the river. At Detroit, Macinaw, and 
especially in the French settlements in the Illinois 
country, the French population diminished. Many 
crossed the Mississippi where they could still be resi- 
dents of a French colony, soon after the garrisoning of 
the posts by the English, but Louisiana was soon ceded 
to Spain and the}- had no further opportunity to live 
under French rule on the American continent. 

When the great war-chief, l'ontiac was murdered in 
the country of the Illinois, by one or more of that nation, 



2j« Earlv History of the Fox River Valley. 

and they protected and took the part of the assassin, 
there was great excitement and indignation against that 
tribe. The attacks on the Illinois were so numerous and 
so furious that their tribes were nearly destroyed. It 
does not appear that the Sacs and Foxes, as tribes, took 
any part in the great conspiracy of Pontiac, but they are 
represented as being among the most active in reveng- 
ing his death. It is possible that they used this pretext 
to renew the old hostility against the Illinois, which had 
formed a large part of the cause of the war by the French 
against the Foxes, nearly half a century earlier. 

While the few Frenchmen and the half breed Indians 
of the Fox were going on with their accustomed avoca- 
tions and trade as though no change had taken place in 
the government of New France, and caring little for the 
change which in no way affected them, events were 
moving rapidly which, within the life of some of them, 
were to produce marvelous changes, and within a cen- 
tury were to put the Fox River V alley, with all the west- 
ern wilderness of New France and Louisiana into the 
line of march of the advancing civilization of the Nine- 
teenth century. 

English statesmen had watched the rapid growing 
strength and power of her American colonies with jeal- 
ousy and suspicion. England had discouraged the 
plantings of any new colony away from the seaboard, 
in truth, strongly republican ideas, which pervaded the 
colonies already in existence, boded evil to George III. 



Early History oj the Fox River Valley, si j 

While he was striving to extend the prerogatives of the 
crown as ardently as ever did one of the Stuarts, the 
troublesome elective legislatures of the colonies were 
asserting, in no uncertain terms, the prerogatives of the 
people. Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, lost the 
opportunity to fortify at the forks of the Ohio before the 
French did, in 1754, because the house of Burgesses 
would not appropriate the necessary funds (which he 
could get in no other way), until he would relinquish the 
charge, which they had never authorized, of one pistole 
fee for every grant of land in the colony. English 
colonial policy had not yet learned to tolerate a republi- 
can colonial empire like the Dominion of Canada, in her 
colonies. The culminating controversy over the right 
of parliament to levy taxes in the colonies, led finally to 
open war, to the declaration of independence and to the 
floating of the Stars and Stripes as the emblem of the 
sovereignty of a great and free peop 1 e, whose will makes 
the law which governs them. Some of the results are 
seen in the mills, factories and thousand active indus- 
tries; the thriving cities and villages and the immense 
agricultural development, which now place t he Fox 
River Valley well to the front as a scat of wealth, culture 
and refinement. The war-whoop is replaced by the 
steam whistle of the locomotive, the steamboat and the 
factory; the savage war-song by the patriotic songs of a 
free people; and the medicine-song by the hymns and 
anthems of a Christian people. 



CHAPTER XX 

DURING THE REVOLUTION. 

Immediately after the treaty with France in 1763, the 
King of England issued a proclamation adopted by the 
King in council, by which the territory acquired by the 
treaty was organized into the provinces of East and 
West Florida and the province of Quebec. The procla- 
mation, among other things forbade the governors of 
these provinces to grant any warrant for survey, or pass 
any patents for lands beyond the limits of their respec- 
tive governments, as prescribed by the proclamation. 
It also forbade the governors of the other colonies 
granting any warrants for survey, or passing any patent 
for any lands beyond the head waters of the rivers which 
fall into the Atlantic, or the grant of any warrants for 
survey or passing any patent for any lands whatever. 
which had not been purchased by, or ceded to the King. 
This tenderness for the Indian land titles had not 
marked the earlier stages of the colonial life of the colo- 
nies. It established a policy which has been followed by 



Early History of the Fox River Valley, 2/3 

the United States, of extinguishing Indian titles before 
surveying or granting any lands. Jealousy of the grow- 
ing strength of the colonies, which had been demons- 
trated in the seven years war, and fear that they would 
get beyond control probably had some influence in 
determining this policy. 

The troubles between the colonies and the mother 
country, principally over the question of the right of 
parliament, in which they were not represented, to tax 
the people of the colonies, were getting perilously neat 
to the point of open rupture, when, in 1774, parliament 
enacted the celebrated "Quebec Act." 

This act, among other things, abolished representa- 
tive government in that province and practically re- 
stored the old French policy, vesting the power, includ- 
ing that of taxation, in the governor and council. The 
point for which I mention it particularly is, that it ex- 
tended the boundaries of that province, so as to include 
in it all the territory northwest of the Ohio River, which 
was covered, thirteen years later, by the ordinance of 

1787. 

Macinaw was regarrisoned by the English in 1764 
and de Langlade returned to his former position as su- 
perintendent of the Indians in the Green Bay district. 
When the revolution broke out, at the request of Major 
De Peyster, then commander at Macinaw, he once more 
rallied a force of Indians among the Ottawas, Menom- 



214 Early History 0/ the Fox River Valley. 

onees and other tribes, and led them to Montreal to join 
the army of Burgoyne. 

The English officers knew what his services had 
been to the French in the former war and, as they could 
not appropriate any part of the glory of his achieve- 
ments, did not hesitate to speak of them as they were. 

In 1777, Thomas Anbury, then an officer in Bur- 
goyne's army, wrote that they were expecting a force of 
Ottawas "led by M. de St. Luc and M. de Langlade, 
both great partizans of the French cause in the last war; 
the latter is the person who, at the head of the tribe 
which he now commands, planned and executed the de- 
feat of General Braddock." Burgoyne himself wrote, 
July 17th, 1777: "I am informed that the Ottawas and 
other Indian tribes, who are two days march from us, 
are brave and faithful, and that they practice war and 
not pillage. They are under the orders of M. St. Luc 
.... and a M. de Langlade, the very man who with 
these tribes projected and executed Braddock's defeat." 
t Tasse's Memoir, p. 133). 

Most of the Indians and Canadians soon left Bur- 
goyne. The unfortunate general did not understand 
the character of these allies, and they were illy fitted for 
civilized warfare in an inhabited country. The con- 
troversy between him and St. Luc is detailed in Tasse's 
"Memoir of de Langlade" (VII Wis. Historical Collec- 
tions, pp. 168-172). It would be out of place here. 

Virginia, under the various charters which she held 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 2 / i 

from the crown, claimed the rightful jurisdiction over 
all the territory northwest of the Ohio River, which the 
Quebec Act had attached to that province. The elo 
qnent revolutionist, Patrick Henry, then governor of 
Virginia, and his council concluded to carry on a little 
side war of their own, to oust the small British garri- 
sons who occupied the old French posts in the Illinois 
country, as that whole region was called. Colonel 
George Rogers Clark was commissioned to raise a force 
of three hundred men for that purpose. With much 
difficulty Clark succeeded in raising about half that 
number, mostly frontiersmen, and started to wrest that 
country from the dominion of the King of England. 
The little army were not arrayed in gorgeous uniforms, 
but they had pluck and energy, and were marksmen 
with the rifle, which were more ' important than uni- 
forms . 

Clark reached Kaskaskia on the evening of July 4th. 
1778, and crossing the river in the night, found the 
gates of the fort open and unguarded. Tn the morning 
he was in possession of both fort and town. The whole 
story of the capture of Kaskaskia, Cahokia and finally 
of Vincennes without bloodshed is interesting, but too 
long to relate here. The French inhabitants, when in- 
formed of the state of affairs, and the alliance between 
France and the United States, took an oath of allegiance 
to Virginia, and Clark proceeded to set up a form of 
government and establish courts. The legislature of 



2 rb Early History of the Fox River Valley . 

Virginia soon established the county of Illinois and ap- 
pointed a commandant for that region. The Indians in 
the vicinity of the captured posts, surprised, and per- 
haps somewhat alarmed at the easy triumph of the "big 
knives," as the Americans were called, soon entered into 
treaties with Clark, and the dominion of Virginia was 
established there. 

Lieutenant Governor Hamilton, the British com- 
mander at Detroit, (known as the "hair buyer," because, 
as it was said, he offered the Indians rewards for Ameri- 
can scalps and none for prisoners), when he heard of 
Clark's doings raised a force of regulars, militia and In- 
dians to retake the Ilinois posts and capture Colonel 
Clark. Hamilton reached Vincennes in December and 
summoned the garrison to surrender. Captain Helm, 
who was left in command there, put on a bold front and 
asked for terms. Hamilton was in a hurry and gave the 
usual terms of honorable capitulation. He was some- 
what surprised to see the captain march out with the 
honors of war, with one private soldier. Of course, the 
people of Vincennes had to change their allegiance at 
once. At Vincennes, Hamilton took up his winter 
quarters with a garrison of seventy-nine men. Clark 
was at Kaskaskia and did nor approve of Hamilton's 
course. He therefore made a winter march in Feb- 
ruary, with one hundred and seventy men all told, in- 
cluding pack-horsemen and other employes. He 
arrived near Vincennes on the 21st. He took posses- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 217 

sion of the town and summoned Hamilton to surrender 
the fort. His rifles kept up an incessant fire, and if one 
of Hamilton's men appeared in sight, he immediately 
became the target for a rifle ball. Hamilton was forced 
to surrender on the 2.4th of February, T779, and was 
sent prisoner to Virginia. 

it was in the fall of 177& that the Indians of Wiscon- 
sin were called upon to organize to reinforce Hamilton. 
They were not very zealous partisans of the English 
cause. They had lost some lives at the battle of Ben- 
nington and had left Burgoyne because they would not 
serve longer under the restrictions which he imposed. 
They were to assemble at L' Arbor Croche for the expe- 
dition. The conglomerate band at Milwaukee could 
not be induced to take any part until de Langlade went 
there and held a dog-feast in the Indian fashion. Under 
Captain de Langlade the Indian force collected, 
went in canoes to .St. Joseph, where they learned that 
they were too late, as Hamilton was already the pris- 
oner of Clark, and the Indians returned home disgusted 
and without a scalp. (1). This was the last military 
service of Charles de Langlade, though he lived till the 
year t8oo. 

In 1780, there was a large and valuable lot of peltries 
stored in the old fort at Prairie du Chien, belonging to 
traders at Green Bay or Macinaw. De Langlade was 
there with a small force protecting them. It was feared 
that the "big knives," under Colonel Clark, would raid 



2/8 Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 

the place, and de Langlade had not sufficient force to 
protect them. John Long, an English trader from 
Macinaw, joined de Langlade with a few Canadians and 
a larger force of Indians. They loaded the furs into 
their canoes to the number of three hundred packs. 
burning sixty packs which their canoes had not capa- 
city for. and took them to Macinaw. Clark's forces 
arrived there five days later, but the booty was gone. 

Gautier de Verville had before this time led a raid of 
Wisconsin Indians into Illinois to destroy a trading post 
where Peoria now stands, which the English feared the 
Americans might occupy and fortify. 

Augustin de Langlade, the father of Charles, who is 
regarded as the head of the first family of permanent 
settlers in Wisconsin, died, according to Grignon, about 
177 1, and was buried at Green Bay. It is presumed 
that his widow returned to her kindred at Macinaw. 
The Langlades had taken possession and improved con- 
siderable land at Green Bay, and in J 782, written per- 
mission was given to Madame Langlade to go to Green 
Bay and take possession of her houses, gardens, farms 
and property, by Lieutenant Governor Patrick Sin- 
clair. British commander at Macinaw. 

Bearing in mind the history of the war of 1898 with 
Spain, and the treaty which followed it, it may well 
cause reflection, if not a smile, to remember that in 
1783, while the treaty was being negotiated which estab- 
lished the independence of the United States, the sov- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. a 19 

ereignty of Spain, over all the country west of the Mis- 
sissippi River was acknowledged, under the name of 
Louisiana. Spain was at war with England and, by con- 
quest, or diplomacy, hoped to acquire that part of the 
old French province of Louisiana which was east of that 
river. France had, by treaty, guaranteed the independ- 
ence of the United States and, under the treaty, neither 
was to conclude a peace with England until the other 
did the same. During the negotiations for peace, 
French diplomacy endeavored to aid Spain in limiting 
the boundaries of the United States on the west to the 
head waters of the rivers flowing into the Atlantic 
ocean, or to a line far east of the Mississippi. Had 
Spain succeeded in her designs the Fox River Valley, 
with all the northwest, might have become Spanish ter- 
ritory. But for the meddling of France and Spain it 
was not impossible that the northern boundary of the 
United States might have been on Hudson bay and the 
Arctic sea. The common sense of the British ministry 
of the time and the disregard of their instructions by the 
American commissioners, settled the northern boun- 
dary through the middle of the lakes and connecting 
rivers. Thus this valley, with the territory north-west 
of the Ohio, became territory of the United States. 
(See Hinsdale's "Old Northwest," Chap. X). 

England, under some pretext of failure by the 
United States to fulfill some conditions of the treaty 
(probably true enough), held the posts in the northwest, 



2So Early History of the Fox River Valley- 

which she occupied at the close of the war, until after 
Jay's treaty in 1794. Macinaw was not occupied by an 
American garrison till 1796. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XX. 

(t). Charles Gautier de Verville, a son of a half-sis- 
ter of de Langlade, had served under the latter at Brad- 
dock's defeat and through the subsequent war and be- 
came noted for his bravery. He also followed de Lang- 
lade in the English service, in the revolutionary war and 
was made a captain in the Indian department. In XII., 
W. H. Coll.. 100-111, is a very curious journal sent by 
him to Gov. Carlton, of Canada. It gives his experi- 
ences in endeavoring to raise an Indian force for this 
service. It shows that the Indians were uncertain and 
lukewarm in the English cause and that some, — especi- 
ally the Sauks, were dallying with the "Bostonians." 

The letters of Major De Peyster, in VII., W. H. 
Coll., 405-408, show that the Spaniards from west of the 
Mississippi, were taking a hand in the efforts to con- 
ciliate and gain the good will of the Indians and that 
they sent an agent with a wampum belt to the motley 
band at Milwaukee. De Peyster thought that their pur- 
pose was trade, only. But Spanish ambition probably 
looked farther. A Spanish force at one time crossed 
from St. Louis and took possession of St. Joseph, on 
Lake Michigan. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

BETWEEN THE TWO WARS WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 

The definitive treaty of peace between the United 
States and Great Britain was not signed till September 
3rd, 1783. The preliminary treaty had been agreed 
upon, however, and in July of that year Washington 
sent Baron Steuben to General Haldiman, the British 
commander in Canada, with authority to receive pos- 
session of Detroit and the other western posts for the 
United States. It was agreed that they were to be de- 
livered up, but Haldiman said he had no orders to de- 
liver them, and declined to discuss the matter with 
Steuben. Afterward, the delivery was delayed, as be- 
fore stated, because ,as was claimed, the United States 
had failed to perform some stipulations of the treaty. 
So it happened that the English troops remained at 
Macinaw and the other posts in their possession at the 
time of the treaty, until after Jay's treaty, and no Ameri- 
can garrison occupied Macinaw till 1796. This is not 
the place to discuss the reasons for this holding on to 



222 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

these posts, and the serious consequences in the north- 
west. The fierce war waged by the Indians encouraged, 
if not instigated, by the English, to restrict the Ameri- 
can occupation to the line of the Ohio River, cost many 
lives. 

Green Bay was not garrisoned by either English or 
Americans, and the quiet valley of the Fox was not dis- 
turbed by the fierce struggle, in which Harmer and St. 
Clair were defeated and "Mad Anthony" Wayne 
brought the savages to terms and closed a treaty with 
them the year following Jay's treaty. 

The only attempt on the part of the Americans to 
exercise any jurisdiction in the Fox River Valley, be- 
fore the close of the war of 1812-1815 that appears, was 
the issuing of a commission by Governor Harrison, of 
Indiana, four or five years before that was commenced, 
appointing the celebrated Charles Raume a justice of 
the peace. Under that appointment Raume continued 
to dispense (or dispense with) justice at the Green Bay 
settlement in a very eccentric fashion for several years. 
For many years before this, marriages there were en- 
tered into by contract in the presence of witnesses, there 
being neither clergyman nor magistrate to perform the 
ceremony. Disputes were settled by arbitration and the 
little community had no need for courts, officers of the 
law, nor lawyers. They even lived to a fair old age, in 
many instances, without the aid of doctors. As we have 
seen, seven families, with tb f eir retainers, amounting to 



Earlv History of the Fox River Va'lev. 223 

about fifty-six souls, constituted the embryo city in 
17S5. 

From 1791, there began some gradual accessions to 
the little colony of Green Bay — mostly French Cana- 
dians, attracted, as their predecessors had been, by the 
fur trade. In that year came James Porlier, an educat- 
ed, refined gentleman in the true sense oi the word, who 
afterward filled various judicial positions in the days of 
the American occupation with credit and honor, and 
was until his death one of the most respected and 
honored citizens of that place. The next year came the 
eccentric Raume. Others came until the beginning of 
the war of 1812-1815, at which time Grignon estimates 
that the population there was not less than two hundred 
and fifty. (1). They took up land claims along the Fox 
River, in the Canadian fashion ,with a narrow frontage 
on the river and extendi no- back from the river a dis- 
tance sufficient to include as much land as they wanted. 
So the banks of the river, to the rapids at De Pere, were 
occupied by these narrow holdings, each with its neatly 
whitewashed cottage, or cabin, located near the river 
and in such proximity to each other that the social ad- 
vantages of village life were enjoyed by all. The French 
settler had no disposition to seek out the best land and 
commence a lonely clearing and improvement, isolated 
from all neighbors. His social life was as essential to 
his comfort and happiness as food and raiment. 

One who will glance at the town of Allouez, on a 



324 Early History of the Fox Rtver Valley. 

modern map of Brown County, will get an idea of their 
manner of settlements; and one who reads the fascinat- 
ing chapter in "Historic Green Bay," entitled "In Good 
Old Colony Days," will get an idea of their social life 
and be convinced that there were compensations for 
their separation from the rush of the great currents of 
humanity. It is certain that much of the worry and the 
selfishness of life under conditions of existence in popu- 
lous and energetic communities were eliminated from 
the life of this little community in the wilderness. Kind- 
ness, hospitality and courtesy pervaded their intercourse 
among themselves, and with strangers who happened, 
among them. Their social amusements were ilie source 
of pleasure and enjoyment which were not excelled in 
the gayest capitals of the world. 

The custom of the traders was to take a stock of 
goods and, with their "engages," to follow the Indians 
to their winter hunting grounds. Grignon's recollec- 
tions show that he passed winters in many different 
places. 

The agriculture of this little colony was carried on 
to the extent necessarv to supply the home demand. 
The implements were few and of the crude clumsy pat- 
terns in use in Canada. Canadian ponies, small, but 
strong and hardy, and often rleet of foot, were the horses 
in use. Canadian carts were used for toting purposes. 
There were no carriages, but carioles and other vehicles 
for business or pleasure when the snow and ice of win- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 225 

ter closed the canoe navigation. This commerce sup- 
plied all their needs which they could not supply from 
their home resources. The people of the little colony 
were happy, because they were contented. The sharp 
struggle for existence, the keen strife for gain, the so- 
cial ambitions, the perpetual longing for something 
which one has not while others have, which makes the 
unrest of a dense population and highly enlightened 
communities, were practically unknown among the gay, 
easy-going Canadians and mixed bloods of that early 
settlement. 

The Winnebago Indians were spreading themselves 
out. There were villages of them at Doty's Island and 
Garlic Island; at Black Wolf, six or seven miles south 
of the site of Oshkosh; at Taycheedah, on the east shore 
of Take Winnebago, about three miles from the present 
Fond du Lac; and a band with an exceedingly bad repu- 
tation had established themselves farther south on the 
head waters of the Rock River. They also had villages 
at Green Lake and at Lake Puckaway, on the upper 
Fox. They therefore claimed jurisdiction over the 
whole valley, above the outlet of Lake Winnebago and 
greatly increased in numbers. 

About 1790, a band of them established a village on 
the Wisconsin, two or three miles above the portage, 
which grew to be a considerable village. Here the D@ 
Kaury family, descendants of a French trader who mar- 



226 Early History of the Fox River Valley* 

ried a sister of the head chief of the Winnebagos, were 
the principal chiefs. 

Now let us (in imagination) for a few minutes go 
back something more than a«century, to the spring of 
1793, and stand on the narrow strip of land known since 
the days of Marquette as "the Portage." Looking to 
the north-west, you see the Wisconsin, then swollen to 
its spring proportions, come rushing and swirling down, 
like an ardent lover to meet his expected sweetheart, 
while up from the south slowly and timidly the waters 
of the modest little Fox creep along to meet the rush- 
ing Wisconsin. Both seem to be aiming for a union 
which shall mingle their currents forever. But they 
meet an impediment, an obstacle which they fail to 
overleap, in the narrow strip of land a mile and a quar- 
ter in width ,more or less. The restless Wisconsin 
strikes it and is deflected to the south-west and goes 
brawling and complaining in eccentric course among 
the' shifting sand-bars, to mingle with the eddies and 
muddy currents of the Great River of the west. The 
little Fox, deflected to the north by the other side of the 
narrow barrier, goes slowly and sadly to hide herself in 
the reeds, marshes and wild rice beds that seek to choke 
her way until, finally, emerging from her obscurity, she 
frtoves on in a north-easterly direction until she meets 
and unites with the Wolf, a stream as large as the Wis- 
consin and of much better behavior; a stream so yielding 
in its gentle nature as even to yield its name and go on 



Early History of the Fox River Vauey. 927 

under that of its little partner, to mingle with the waters 
of the great lakes and finally reach the sea through the 
current of the mighty St. Lawrence. That narrow strip 
of land where the Fox and Wisconsin come so near 
meeting, up in the heart of the state of Wisconsin, is the 
western extremity of the Fox River Valley. The wa- 
ters, which so nearly meet there, never meet, until, 
through the gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, they are 
absorbed in the eternity of the boundless ocean. 

Imagination tires with the contemplation of the in- 
numerable weary trips across the portage, that were 
made by men laden with goods, peltries and canoes on 
their backs or shoulders, or improvised hand-barrows, 
during the one hundred and twenty years since Mar- 
quette and his companions toted their canoes and outfit 
across there. 

In the spring of 1793, down to the Portage came 
Laurent Barth, from the St. Croix River, where he had 
followed the Indians to their hunting grounds, and win- 
tered with, or near, James Porlier and Charles Raume, 
of Green Bay, both of whom afterward became conspic- 
uous (though in a different way) in the judicial annals of 
that ancient borough. Grignon says that Barth was a 
Macinaw trader. At the portage he bethought him of 
an enterprise which might be to his advantage. He 
procured from the Winnebago chiefs a franchise to 
establish a transportation line across the portage. He 
erected a house and engaged in business under his fran- 



228 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

chise, as a common carrier, with an outfit of one Cana- 
dian pony and cart. Grignon says that he purchased 
the franchise — a precedent which is supposed to have 
been often followed since. So Barth became the founder 
and first settler of the thriving city of Portage. Here 
he drove his pony and cart forth and back across the 
portage for the accommodation of traders and travelers 
— and fifty cents a hundred pounds. Thus, civilization 
began its footprints on the sands of the portage. Barth 
was soon to learn that civilized avocations are liable to 
vicissitudes. In 1798, his comfortable monopoly came 
,0 an end. Whether it was agreed that his franchise 
should be exclusive, or not, does not appear. In the 
year last mentioned came one John Lecuyer. He was a 
brother-in-law to the elder De-Kaury, who was a great 
man among the Winnebagos. Therefore, he had a 
'pull," and he procured a franchise from them, similar 
in terms to Earth's. There was no court of chancery 
among the Indians, to which Barth could apply for an 
injunction, and Lecuyer came on with several horses 
and carts and a wagon with a long reach, on which large 
canoes could be hauled. It appears that competition 
brought down the rate to forty cents per hundred 
pounds. The new century, probably, found Barth some- 
what discouraged. About 1803, he sold out to a Mr. 
Campbell, afterward American Indian agent at Prairie 
.In Chien. Shortly afterward Campbell sold his fixtures 
uO Lecuver. who expected thereby to have a monopoly. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 229 

But Campbell's franchise was not included in the deal. 
Soon there came Campbell's son, John, with teams and 
wagons, and a long, heavy wagon or truck, on which 
barges could be transported. For many years, the trans- 
portation across the portage was the principal business 
there. It was the nucleus of the permanent settlement. 
Lecuyer and his successors also kept a stock of mer- 
chandise. It was a winter trading point for the Indian 
traders also, for several years. Augustin Grignon spent 
two winters there, and Judge Porlier did the same, it is 
said. 

In view of the rapid settlement of new territory 
which has been seen in our day, it seems strange, to re- 
flect that a century ago, one generation had been born 
and grown old, and a second generation had been born 
and grown up, and the third were being born and grow- 
ing up at one extremity of the valley of the Fox, before 
the nucleus of a settlement was planted at the other ex- 
tremity. 

Though the Canadians and their families, who con- 
stituted the advance guard of civilization in this valley, 
and the whole northwest, for about a century and a half, 
had few of the luxuries of life, and had but very crude 
implements and appliances for providing themselves 
with its comforts, they were happy and contented. They 
raised the wheat to make their flour from the time of 
the first permanent settlement, and they ground it in 
hand mills worked with two cranks, with which two per- 



230 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

sons could grind about half a bushel in an hour, until 
the year 1809. Then Jacob Franks erected the first saw 
mill and the first grist mill in the Fox River Valley, on 
Devil River, two or three miles east of De Pere. The 
mill-wright who erected them was an American, named 
Bradley. When Pierre Grignon erected a new house in 
1790, better than any house at Green Bay, though the 
house was of hewn logs, he had to import a carpenter 
and a mason from Montreal. Their fields were plowed 
with a wooden plow, having only a point of iron, with a 
long plow-beam supported on small wheels and drawn 
by oxen, with a straight yoke lashed across their horns 
and attached to the plow by thongs of hide. Yet, they 
were happy and did not furrow their brows prematurely 
with the care of heaping up riches, which they could not 
tell who should gather after they were gone. The 
shades of color among them were various, from white to 
dark brown, and their descendants, proud of their 
ancestrv, are still found in Wisconsin. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XXI. 

(1). When Captain Anderson visited Green Bay 
the first time, in the year 1800. he found about a dozen 
settlers, IX., W. H. Coll., 145- 



CHAPTER XXII. 

IN THE WAR OF 1812-1815. 

Spain had ceded Louisiana back to France and 
Napoleon had sold it to the United States in 1803. So 
at the beginning- of the war, New Orleans was an Ameri- 
can post. After the posts on the upper lakes had been 
turned over to the Americans under Jay's treaty, Ameri- 
can fur traders appeared at Macinaw. An Act of Con- 
gress., approved March 30th, 1802, had prohibited any 
residence at Indian villages or hunting grounds, for 
trade with the Indians without a license from the United 
States. The Northwest Company, under the British 
occupancy, had built up a great trade with the Indians of 
the upper lakes and upper Mississippi. Robert Dic*c- 
son, a Scotchman, who had been engaged in the trade 
for many years as an agent of the Northwest Company, 
had married a sister of a Sioux chief and had acquired an 
influence among the northwestern tribes similar to that 
of Nicholas Perrot, more than a century earlier. He was 
called the "red head" by the Sioux, because of the color 



232 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

of his hair. The Americans had not garrisoned any post 
at Green Bay, nor on the upper Mississippi, and the 
Northwest Company continued largely to control the 
trade. When it was proposed to enforce the act 
of 1802, on the Fox River, about 18 10, a com- 
bination of seven traders, with Dickson at their 
head, proposed to run the blockade at Macinaw. In it 
were John Lawe and Jacob Franks, English traders, who 
had settled at Green Bay in the last decade of the pre- 
vious century. Tt is said they ran over $50,000 worth of 
goods, for the Indian trade, past Macinaw in the night, 
in batteaux, and got them safely to the Bay. Prairie du 
Chien was occupied by the English traders and a small 
force of men. It was important for the Northwest Com- 
pany that Macinaw should be in British hands. So it 
happened, as in former wars, that the interests of the fur 
trade had much to do with the military operations in the 
upper lake region. 

War was declared by Congress on the 18th of June, 
1812, and the proclamation by the President was issued 
the next day. There was gross negligence, or some- 
thing worse, so that the declaration was known at all 
the British posts on the frontier, before the commanders 
at the American posts received any notice of it. There 
was a British post at the island of St. Joseph, near the 
north shore of Lake Huron, commanded by Captain 
Roberts. The British post had been warned to expect 
the declaration, and Captain Roberts was informed of it 



Marly History of the Fox River Valley, 233 

as speedily as possible. He was ready to act at once. 
Requisition was made on the Northwest Company, and 
a large force of traders and employes joined him. Dick- 
son had rallied a force of Indians, including a large num- 
ber of Menomonees and Winnebagos. Lieutenant 
Hanks held the post at Macinaw with an American 
force of fifty-seven effective men, five sick men and a 
drummer boy. The first information which he had of 
the war was on the 17th day of July. He arose that 
morning to find that Captain Roberts with a force of 
] ,000 white, mixed and red men, had landed on the 
opposite side of the island and had cannon planted on 
high ground, which commanded the fort. With notice 
that war Avas declared came a summons to surrender the 
fort. As it was manifest that he could not defend it and 
there were several hundred Indians there anxious for the 
scalps of the little garrison and the few Americans there, 
he surrendered and Michilimacinac was a British post 
during the war, greatly to the advantage of Robert 
Dickson and the Northwest Company. Hanks' report 
to General Hull was dated at Detroit, August 12th. On 
the 1 6th of August occurred the disgraceful surrender 
of Detroit and the territory of Michigan, by General 
Hull. Hanks did not live to see it, however. He had 
been cut in two by a cannon ball from a British battery. 

Many of the Menomonees, under the Chief Tomah 
(Thomas Carron), and many also of the Winnebagos and 
other tribes, whom Dickson had induced to take the 



2J4 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

field joined Proctor's army. Proctor found, as Bur- 
goyne had before, that an Indian force was of but little 
assistance in civilized warfare, except to eat up his sup- 
plies. Oshkosh, then very young, was with Tomah. 
After Harrison re-occupied Detroit and defeated Proc- 
tor at the Thames, where Tecumseh was killed, most of 
the Indian allies went home. This was in 1813. Am- 
herstburg had been the point from which Macinaw was 
furnished with supplies and after the British fell back, 
Macinaw was left, in the fall of that year, short of sup- 
plies and Dickson was belated, in starting for Prairie du 
Chicn, with the goods which were essential to keep the 
Indians to their alliance with the British. Dickson was 
at the head of the Northwestern Indian department with 
the title of colonel. Louis Grignon, the oldest of the 
brothers then constituting the most prominent family at 
Green Bay, and John Lawe were lieutenants in the same 
department. The following is gleaned principally from 
the "Lawe and Grignon papers." in Vol. X., the "Cap- 
ture of Fort McCay" and illustrative documents and the 
"Dickson and Grignon papers" in Vol. XL, the "papers 
from the Canadian Archives" and "Robert Dickson, the 
trader," in Vol. XII. and the "Bulger papers" and docu- 
ments, in Vol. XIII. and the "Recollections of Augus- 
ta Grignon," in Vol. III. of the Wisconsin Historical 
Collections. 

October 23rd, Dickson was ready to start from Maci- 
naw, with an assortment of Indian goods which he 



Early History oj the Fox River Valley. 233 

deemed adequate for the support of the Indians, for 
whom they were intended, through the winter. He ex- 
pected to spend the winter on the Mississippi. On the 
date above mentioned, Captain Bullock, commander at 
Macinaw, wrote that he had detached one subaltern, one 
sergeant and twenty-six men, in six boats, with Dickson, 
to establish a post at La Baye. The intention was, prob- 
ably, that they should accompany Dickson to Prairie clu 
Chien and return to Green Bay to establish the post. 
They did not stop there for the purpose. 

November 13th, Dickson was at Lake Winnebago, 
as shown by his letters. Then the small lakes were fro- 
zen and he was compelled to remain at, or near, the vil- 
lage of the Winnebagos. on Doty's island at the outlet of 
the lake, until April. On the 25th. he was at Green Bay, 
issuing instructions to Lieutenants Lawe and Grignon 
and on December 5th, he wrote to Lawe from Garlic 
Island, an island of eight or ten acres about midway be- 
tween Oshkosh and Neenah, now known by the more 
attractive name of Island Park, and occupied by private 
summer cottages. There is a popular tradition that 
Dickson spent the winter at this island, where a band of 
the Winnebagos had a village. But his letter of Decem- 
ber 5th is the only one during that winter dated from 
that island. The others are from "Winnebago Lake," 
and there are numerous indications in the letters that he 
was at the point where he reached the lake. 

Dickson kept his lieutenants at the Bay pretty busy 



-?j6 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

hunting for supplies for the garrison at Macinaw and 
provisions to meet the necessities of his own situation. 
The winter was a hard one and he was constantly beset 
by half starved Indians who came and ate up his sup- 
plies. The Pottawatomies, who had shown their zeal in 
the British cause at the outset, by the treacherous mas- 
sacre at Chicago, were suspected of a design to go over 
to the Americans. Seven of them who came to him at 
one time, he believed were spies. Later he was in lively 
expectation of an attack by them. The Sauks whose 
chief, Black Hawk, he had made commander in chief of 
the Indians sent to Proctor the previous year, also be- 
came objects of suspicion. The Americans had been 
tampering with these former allies of the British, who 
were politic, if not politicians, and liked to be friends 
with the side on which the presents were the greatest 
and the most readily forthcoming. Tomah, the Meno- 
monee chief, (whom he calls Thomas), directed his war- 
riors to be in readiness if called upon to go to Dickson's 
assistance. In fact, he seemed to have implicit faith in 
none of the tribes except the Menomonees. The happy- 
go-lucky population of the settlement at La Baye, were 
not accustomed to supplying any foreign demand for 
agricultural products. Ordinarilv they had an abund- 
ance, but the demands for Macinaw, and for Dickson 
and the roving half starved visitors whom he could not 
turn away hungry, was too much for their store. The 
supply of flour was out and they had to send wheat and 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 2jy 

a hand mill to Dickson. They were in danger of being 
left without seed for the spring sowing and planting. 
Some were disposed to hold for exhorbitant prices 
Dickson ordered his lieutenants, if any would not sell. 
who had supplies, to seize them in the name of the King. 
They were paid with a kind of paper currency issued 
from the commissary department, which was redeemable 
at Quebec. 

The expected attack was not made and the winter 
wore away. In April Dickson was able to get his goods 
to Prairie du Chien. After a short stay, he returned to 
muster his Indian allies to assist in repelling an expected 
attack at Macinaw and led two hundred warriors there. 
Lieutenant Colonel McDouall arrived soon after with 
reinforcements from Canada, and assuming the com- 
mand, commenced actively strengthening the defenses 
of Macinaw. Bad news from the Mississippi soon came. 
Governor Clark had ascended the river from St. Louis, 
with an American force and taken possession of Prairie 
du Chien. Captain Dease, who held the place for Dick- 
son with a few men, retired on the approach of the 
Americans, who left a garrison there. To leave them 
there would be ruinous to the British fur trade in 
that quarter. An expedition to recapture Prairie du 
Chien was planned at once. The Americans had erected 
a fort, named Fort Shelby, and were protecting it with a 
considerable garrison and a gun boat anchored in the 
river. Lieutenant Colonel McKay, of the Indian depart- 



jjS Early History of the Fox River Vcrney. 

ment, commanded the expedition. It consisted of a 
small party of regulars, about eighteen men, two com- 
panies of militia of about fifty each, recruited at Maci- 
naw, one company of about thirty, some of them old 
men unfit for service, recruited at Green Bay, about two 
hundred Sioux and a hundred Winnebagos, under their 
chiefs. Dickson's Menomonee friends, under Tomah, 
with whom was the young Oshkosh, were retained for 
the defense of Macinaw. The regulars of the force were 
commanded by Captain Puhlman, the Macinaw com- 
panies by Captains Rolette and Anderson and the Green 
Bay Company was commanded by Captain Pierre Grig- 
non, Augustin Grignon was one of the lieutenants. 
Some Menomonees joined the expedition at Green Bay. 
James J. Porlier. a brother of Louis B. Porlier, of Butte 
des Morts, and son of Judge James Porlier was com- 
missioned as lieutenant in the regulars and joined Cap- 
tain Puhhnan's command. He remained in the service 
at Prairie du Chien till the close of the war, when he re- 
signed. 

The force of McKay arrived at Prairie du Chien on a 
Sunday morning and, if they had been an hour, or two 
later every officer of the garrison of about sixty men 
would have been out riding in the country, as they had 
prepared to go. 

McKay had a battery of one six-pounder, which was 
served by the regulars. With this they managed, at very 
long range, to so damage the gun-boat of the Americans 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. gjg 

that she was compelled to abandon the garrison and go 
down the river. The powder magazine was on the boat. 
The details of the operations of McKay's force around 
the fort for four days as given by Grignon, in his "Recol- 
lections" are interesting and sometimes amusing, but 
too long for repetition here. Captain Pierre Grignon 
and his Green Bay militia, with some Menomonees, 
played an efficient part in assisting to drive the gunboat 
away. When she moved over toward the other shore to 
get farther away from McKay's six-pounder, Captain 
Grignon with his men and the Menomonees crossed 
over to a wooded island beyond her, where, under cover 
of the forest, they could use their muskets at short range 
upon her. In the afternoon of the fourth day, while 
preparations were being made to assault the fort, a flag 
of truce was sent out and Lieutenant Perkins, the 
American commander, surrendered the fort. At Mc- 
Kay's request the Americans remained in the fort till the 
next morning, when they marched out with the honors 
of war. There was fear that the Indians, thus disap- 
pointed of any opportunity to secure scalps, would be 
disposed to disregard the terms of the capitulation, and 
great caution was exercised to prevent any outrage by 
them. One of the Winnebagos, who struck one of the 
soldiers, was immediately knocked down by his chief. 
McKay furnished a guard for the Americans when they 
commenced their march down the river. It was report- 
ed that he returned their arms, so that they might be 



24° Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

able to protect themselves if attacked. The Indians did 
not follow them. The Winnebagos were disposed to 
plunder the citizens and McKay had to threaten to turn 
his troops upon them, before they would desist and go 
home. Captain Puhlman with his regulars and the two 
Macinaw companies remained to garrison the fort, 
which was re-named, Fort McKay, and it was retained 
by the British till the close of the war. 

On the 1 2th of July, 1814, for the first (and last) 
time, an American armed squadron entered Lake 
Huron. It consisted of the Niagara and Lawrence, 
twenty gun ships and several schooners. Macinaw was 
their objective point, but instead of sailing direct to that 
place, the fleet pursued minor game for two weeks, thus 
giving Colonel McDouall ample time to prepare for 
their reception. Batteries were placed to cover all points 
of landing and preparations completed to give the 
American forces, commanded by Colonel Croghan, a 
warm reception. The fleet arrived off Macinaw, July 
26th. Concluding that place could not be carried by 
assault. Colonel Croghan proposed to effect a landing, 
entrench himself and try to starve out the British garri- 
son. On the 4th of August a landing was made, under 
cover of the guns of the fleet, at the same place that Cap- 
tain Roberts had landed two years before. The landing 
was in an open field with thick woods beyond. A bat- 
tery soon opened on Croghan's men, with shot and shell 
and the fire of musketry from the woods was very gal- 



Early History of the Fox River Val^'. 24 r 

ling. Major Holmes, with the regulars, attempting to 
flank the enemy, was met by Tomah and his Menomo- 
nees under the direction of Dickson, with such a fierce 
fire from the thickets, that the attempt failed. Holmes 
was killed. Two of the Menomonees, whose names are 
given by Grignon, fired at him simultaneously and both 
of them claimed the honor of killing him. Croghan was 
obliged to retire to the fleet and Macinaw remained in 
the hands of the British till the war was over. 

On account of the attack upon and blockade of Maci- 
naw, Dickson was again belated in receiving his supply 
of Indian goods for the Mississippi and in November, 

1814, was frozen in with his boats, at Garlic Island. One 
tradition was that he spent that winter at the village of 
the Winnebago chief, Black Wolf, on Black Wolf point 
south of the present city of Oshkosh. It is probable that 
he visited that village, during the winter. There was a 
January thaw, that winter, and on the 15th of January, 

1 8 1 5 , Dickson wrote to Lawe from Prairie du Chien, 
where he was then distributing Indian goods. He says: 
"There were four hundred pounds of gunpowder en- 
tirely lost in Pullmans' boats. We had much difficulty 
in getting here." No letters are found, between Octo- 
ber 22nd, when he wrote from. Macinaw, and the letter 
quoted from. (1). 

March 4th. 1815, Colonel McDouall directed Lieu- 
tenants Lawe and Grignon to come to Macinaw, as soon 
as possible, with ninety, or a hundred Menomonees and 



24a Early History of the Fox River Valley . 

Yvinnebagos. they did not go because by letter from 
John Askin, secretary of the Macinaw Indian agency, 
dated April 25th, they were informed that peace had 
been established. On the 24th of December, 1814, the 
treaty of Ghent was signed, but the news did not reach 
the United States until the middle of February, 1815. 

Thus ended a war, which was declared for specified 
causes, which were ignored in the treaty of peace; which, 
during its progress was saved from being disgraceful to 
the United States, only by the brilliant achievements of 
our little navy, none of which had any effect on the final 
result, excepting the victories of Perry, on Lake Erie 
and McDonough on Lake Champlain, and a few gallant 
exploits of the little armies under Scott and Harrison on 
the northern frontier; and which ended in a' blaze of 
glory, by the splendid victory of Jackson and his south- 
ern riflemen at New Orleans, after the treaty of peace 
was signed and before it was known in America. But it 
probably accomplished much in strengthening the yet 
rather fragile bonds of union between the states and in 
developing a feeling and spirit of nationality, which was 
the best, if not the only hope for the perpetuity of the 
young republic. Through it the national motto. "E 
Pluribus Unum" became more truthful. 



Early History oj the Fox River Valley . 243 

NOTES TO CHAPTER XXTI. 

(1). The mid-winter thaw was such, that winter, 
that the York mail to Macinaw was much delayed and a 
messenger, who arrived at Macinaw in December, could 
not be sent back until February. (Letter of Askin to 
Louis Grignon, X., W. IT. Coll., 126). The thaw which 
prevented communication between .York and Macinaw, 
enabled Dickson to get through from Garlic Island to 
Prairie Du Chien. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

UNDER THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER 

The "Habitans" of Green Bay had been loyal sub- 
jects to the British crown. They had been reduced 
nearly to a state of famine by the drain on their re- 
sources, which the requisitions upon them for the sup- 
port of the garrison at Macinaw, of Dickson's expedi- 
tions and the feeding and depredations of the Indian 
allies of the British, who had rendezvoused at that place 
more than once, under Dickson's leadership or direc- 
tion, had caused, (i). It is not to be supposed that 
they were made happy by the sudden transfer to the 
jurisdiction of the Americans, whom they had been 
fighting. The traders had doubtless heard something of 
the factory system, or system of government trading 
posts which the United States had attempted to estab- 
lish for the trade with the Indians. It was likely to be 
tried on the ground which they had occupied, many of 
them during their lives. Of all the northwestern tribes 
of Indians the Menomonees had been the most faithful, 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 24$ 

consistent and useful allies of the British. The Winne- 
bagos, though Dickson had, at times, suspicion as to 
their good faith, had remained faithful, nominally, 
though sometimes troublesome. They and all the other 
western tribes had learned that the English were some- 
times very liberal in their presents to their allies. Alto- 
gether, probably, there was much doubt and suspicion 
among all classes, as to what was to follow. 

In the summer of 1815, Colonel John Bowyer ap- 
peared as the first American Indian agent at the Green 
Bay agency, who succeeded in no very long time in 
making himself socially popular with the traders and 
merchants and unpopular with the Indians. Next came 
Major Matthew Irwin, in charge of a government trad- 
ing- post, or "factory," who also became justly popular. 
but failed as the government posts everywhere failed, to 
establish any trade with the Indians. The United States, 
as a fur trader, was an ignominious failure. But, the 
Great American Fur Company, headed by John Jacob 
Astor and represented by Ramsey Crooks, was soon on 
the ground and, (knowing its business well), soon had 
in its service nearly all the old Canadian and English 
traders, so that the Indians saw but little. indication of 
the change, at their hunting grounds. 

In July, 18 1 6, came more conspicuous evidence of 
the change than anything which had preceded. One 
day, looking far down the bay the people could discern 
some of the white winged harbingers of a commerce too 



246 Eany History of the Fox River Valiey. 

great for canoes, or batteaux. It was a sight never seen 
in those waters before, as three schooners entered the 
mouth of the Fox River and dropped their anchors. 
From their mast heads and signal halliards floated ban- 
ners which were new to the citizens who had not served 
against it. The Menomonees, many of whom were 
familiar with it on battle fields, where they had fought 
against it, were not pleased at the sight. The ''Star 
Spangled Banner' had come however to stay and they 
were to become as loyal to it as they had been in the old 
time, to the French, and later to the English flag. Those 
schooners were the Washington, of one hundred tons, 
one of the largest of her time, piloted from Macinaw by 
Augustin Grignon, for which service they freighted his 
goods and towed his two boats from Macinaw, where he 
had been with furs and for goods. The two smaller ves- 
sels of the fleet were piloted by Stanislaus Chappue and 
John B. Laborde. These vessels brought the first 
American garrison for Fort Howard, under Colonel 
John Miller, Third United States Infantry. For thirty- 
six years there continued to be a garrison maintained at 
Fort Howard, on the west side of the river. The succes- 
sor of Colonel Miller in command there, was Major 
Zachary Taylor, who made fame in the Mexican war and 
became president of the United States. 

To that part of the population who depended on the 
cultivation of the soil, the advent of the garrison was 
gratifying, because it promised a market for their sur- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 24J 

plus products. The American Fur Company had the 
sagacity to employ the men with whom the Indians had 
been familiar, as their traders and employes. So the 
traders who had been dealing with the Northwest Com- 
pany still continued and flourished in their old avoca- 
tions and continued to follow the Indians to their winter 
hunting, as of yore. 

Green Bay, at the time of the American occupation, 
was still only a Canadian settlement along both sides of 
the Fox River, about five miles, to De Pere. Their 
farms were narrow strips of land, with a frontage on the 
river of from fifteen to sixty rods each, extending back 
to include so much land as each desired to occupy. 
There are two enumerations of the inhabitants, in the 
I .awe and Grignon papers before cited (of men and 
heads of families), one in 1818 and the other without 
date. The first is by J. B. S. Jacobs, Sr. A note by him 
says: "On both sides of the river, forty-seven inhabi- 
tants and farmers besides a good many who have taken 
up lands not yet cultivated." A note by Hon. Morgan 
L. Martin indicates that there had been but little in- 
crease to 1827, when he arrived there. 

The Indians were much dissatisfied with the change. 
Colonel Miller, on his arrival with a garrison, was care- 
ful to treat them with respect and endeavored to secure 
their confidence and friendship. On the afternoon of 
the day of his arrival, with several of his principal offi- 
cers, he visited the Menomonee village of the "Old 



•24S Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

King," situated a short distance above the old fort. He 
made a formal request for permission to erect a fort. 
Tomah was the speaker for the Indians. They received 
the colonel with dignity and smoked the pipe of peace 
with him, but hesitated some time, before answering his 
request. Consent to the erection of a fort was finally 
given. In a short speech, which indicated that they 
knew their inability to prevent it, and with a dignity of 
demeanor and language which much impressed his audi- 
tors, Tomah expressed their consent, asking at the same 
time that their French brothers should not be disturbed, 
or molested. The action of the Winnebagos was 
awaited with some anxiety. A delegation of these tur- 
bulent enemies of the "big knives" came down from 
their principal village on Lake Winnebago, where Car- 
ver had kissed their queen fifty years before. Their chief 
was disposed to remonstrate against what they deemed, 
or chose to assume, to be an unwarranted invasion of 
their territory. When informed that the object of the 
Americans was peace, though they were prepared for 
war, the chief is reported to have intimated that if the 
purpose was peace they had brought too many men and 
if it was war, they had too few. The argument was con- 
cluded, by taking him down to the river bank and show- 
ing; him ten or a dozen cannons as a reserve force which 
he had not seen. So, Fort Howard was erected, with- 
out any active opposition from the Indians. But the 
hatred of the Winnebagos for the "big knives" was not 



Earlv History of the Fox River Valley. 



249 



eradicated. That hatred found expression in the speech 
of their chief Sau-Sa-Mau-Nee at a council held with 
them at Macinaw, by Colonel McDouall, on the 3rd of 
June, 181 5, found in the papers of Captain T. G. Ander- 
son. (X., Wis. Hist. Coll., pp. 143-4-5). 

There are evidences that the agents of the North- 
west Company, especially the "red head," Robert Dick- 
son, had some "underground" communication with 
some of the Indians, which tended to keep up their ani- 
mosity toward the Americans. So late as July 12th, and 
July 30th, 1 82 1, Colonel McKay, then British Indian 
superintendent, held councils with some of the Sauk 
chiefs at Drummond island. The proceedings of these 
councils are found in the Anderson papers above cited. 
The speech of the chief at the last council shows that 
they had very recently received a message from Dick- 
son, tendency of which was to keep alive among them a 
hope that they might yet have the assistance of the "red 
coats" to drive out the Americans. 

In February, 1820, Rev. Jedediah Morse, D. D., 
author of the "Morse's Geography" of our grandfathers 
and father of the inventor of the electric telegraph was 
commissioned by the secretary of war (Calhoun), by 
direction of the president (Monroe), to visit the scat- 
tered tribes of Indians and report upon their number and 
condition. His report was presented to Congress, but 
no action was taken upon it and, at his request, he was 
permitted to withdraw it. It was published in 1822 and 



250 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

contains much information in relation to the condition 
of the Indians and the trade with them, at the time of 
his visit to Green Ray. (2). The factory system, or 
government trading- posts, had proved a failure, prin- 
cipally because the government traders would neither 
trust the Indians for goods, as the traders did, nor fur- 
nish them whiskey, as the traders also did, smuggling 
the whiskey into their boats at some point, after they 
had cleared regularly from the custom house at Maci- 
naw. The kinds and quality of goods furnished at the 
factories, were better adapted to giving somebody pro- 
fitable contracts to furnish goods than to the needs of 
the Indians. The statement of Ramsey Crooks, (cited 
in Historic Green Bay, 157, notes), indicates that in the 
selection of goods, little attention was paid to the habits 
and mode of living of the Indians. The system of gov- 
ernment trading posts, which had been established, ten- 
tatively in 181 1, and continued in force from time to 
time by subsequent acts of Congress, was finally abol- 
ished by an act approved May 6th, 1822. It had proved 
an expensive and dismal failure. 

The custom of the French and British, of making 
presents of large quantities of goods, every year, to their 
Indian allies, was not followed by the United States. 
Nothing was given them until treaty relations were 
established. Annuities in goods and money were usually 
part of the consideration for their cessions of lands. The 
British continued their presents to their allies. It ap- 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 251 

pears that delegations of the Wisconsin tribes visited 
Drummond Island, in the strait below the falls of St. 
Marie, where there was a British garrison, for the pur- 
pose of receivnig these presents. (Major Irwin's state- 
ment; Morse's report, p. 45). Morse, in the tables ap- 
pended to his report, (App. p. 362), gives the statistics 
of the Fox River tribes as follows : 

Menomonees — Number of souls, 3,900, residing in 
a number of villages on Winnebago Lake, Fox River, 
Green Bay and Menomonee River. 

Winnebagos — Number, 5,800 souls, residing in the 
river country on Winnebago Lake and south-west of it 
to the Mississippi River. 

This estimate of the number of souls is probably 
high. Major O' Fallon estimated the Winnebagos at 
4,000. 

So, the Americans found the Fox River Valley occu- 
pied by these two tribes. At the entrance to it, from the 
east, a Canadian settlement, largely of mixed bloods and 
all with Indian or half-breed wives; without schools for 
their children; without priest, or parson, or church; all 
(as well as the Indians) suspicious of the intentions and 
practically inimical to the government, within whose 
treaty boundaries they had been living more than thirty 
years, performing the duties of subjects toward another 
government. Judge Raume had moved up to the littie 
Kakalin and opened a farm. Augustin Grignon had 
moved to the grand Kakalin, where he had a trading 



$$2 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

post and farm, and also carried on the transportation 
business at the portage around the rapids. At the other 
extremity of the valley, were a trading post and store, 
and a few employed in the transportation of goods and 
boats across the portage in the summer, and such em- 
ployment as they could get from the traders in the win- 
ter. These were apparent results of the semi-civilization 
which invaded the valley a century and a half earlier. 
Among the Indians, bows and arrows had given place to 
guns, stone hatchets were replaced by iron and steel and 
in their cabins were many things of utility and comfort 
which their ancestors knew nothing of. It w r as not a 
matter of great importance to the Indians what kind of 
''fire water" they obtained. The quantity interested 
them much more than the quality. They were just as 
anxious "to draw near the breast" of the American hav- 
ing whiskey as they had been, when the English rum, 
or the French brandy was the "milk" they sought. (3). 
Both French and English, in turn, had so plied the 
savages with presents and with liquors, that the Ameri- 
can policy of furnishing neither, as presents, and liquor 
not at all, doubtless, retarded the work of securing their 
confidence. The inevitable and necessary policy which 
followed the American occupation everywhere, which 
Tecumseh had warned them of, of procuring cessions of 
their lands and substituting annuities instead of pres- 
ents, of constantly reducing their territorial limits and 
increasing their annuities, which compelled them to 



Early History of the fox River Valley. 2JJ 

abandon their old modes and habits of life, while most 
of them were incapable of any independent activity in 
any more civilized, settled mode, soon rendered obsolete 
the most noble traits, while retaining all the more 
ignoble traits of the Indian character. 

American emigration to Green Bay was, at first very 
slow and there was none to any other points in the valley 
of the Fox, for twenty years. 

When Morse was at Green Bay, in 1820, he does not 
seem to have found any Americans except the garrison, 
Colonel Bowyer, the Indian agent and Major Irwin, the 
factor of the government trading post. 

Hon. A. G. Ellis, who arrived there in 1822, speaks 
of "some half a dozen Americans," then among the resi- 
dents, (VII., Wis. Hist. Coll., p. 218), and he mentions 
others who came soon after. Mrs. H. S. Baird, who 
arrived there in September, 1824, found at "Shanty 
Town" on the east side of the river a small society of 
eastern English speaking people, some of whom she 
names, but whose numbers she does not give. (IX., 
Wis. Hist. Coll., p. 322). Her brief description of the 
social conditions there is delightful, and her description 
of the customs of the Indians commencing on p. 303, is 
extremely interesting and valuable. Mrs. Bristol, 
daughter of Major Brevoort, who was Indian agent at 
Green Bay, arrived there the 1st of June in the same 
year (1824). In her "Reminiscences of the Northwest, 
(VIII., Wis. Hist. Coll., p. 302-30S), she gives a charm- 



2$4 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

ing description of the social life of the time and place, 
and an interesting account of some of the customs of the 
Indians. During the episode sometimes spoken of as 
the "Winnebago war" in 1827, Major Whistler ascended 
the Fox River to the portage, with a force from Fort 
Howard. The Winnebago chiefs had been notified that 
they would be held responsible for the murders com- 
mitted by Red Bird, if he was not delivered up to the 
Americans. It ended in a very dramatic way, by Red 
Bird and his partner in the murders at Prairie du Chien, 
coming to the Portage and giving themselves up to 
Major Whistler with appropriate Indian ceremonies. 
The American policy was to keep the Indians quiet, not 
by lavish presents, as the French and English had, but 
by establishing military posts at central points and 
applying the law to criminals, red as well as white. 

The Winnebagos had advanced so far in the science 
of political economy that they had been, for some time, 
imitating the old practice of the Foxes and levying a 
tariff on the goods which passed the portage. The 
American Fur Company, in their ignorance, supposed 
that a tariff was a tax. They protested and, at the 
earnest solicitation of John Jacob Astor, as it is said, a 
fort was erected near the portage, called Fort Winne- 
bago, and a garrison stationed there. (4). It is stated 
that Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, with a detail of men got 
out the timber for the fort, above the portage, and thus 
became the first lumberman on the Wisconsin River. 



Early History of the Fox River Valley 255 

The garrison at Fort Howard, commanded by Major 
(afterward General) Twiggs was relieved by another 
garrison commanded bv Colonel William Lawrence, and 
in the fall of 1828, moved up to the portage and, until 
the turbulent Winnebagos removed across the Missis- 
sippi, a garrison was maintained at each end of the val- 
ley of the Fox River. 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XXIII. 

(t). A letter of Askin to Lawe (X.. VY. H. Coll.. 
[25), indicates that the. killing of the cattle of the set- 
tlers, by the Indian allies collected at Green Bay, was a 
usual occurrence. In XII., W. H. Coll., 126-131, is the 
report of a court of inquiry held at Green Bay, in No- 
vember. 18 14, which shows that these depradations were 
pretty extensive, the losses allowed by the court 
amounting to nearly thirty thousand pounds in cur- 
rency. There were thirty-eight claimants and the list 
contains many names which were familiar to the early 
white settlers in the Fox River Valley. It includes 
Augustin and several other members of the Grignon 
family, J. B. La Borde, Charles Raume, Joseph 
Ducharme, Jacques Porlier, Joseph Jourdain, and others 
which were familiar names half a century ago. 

(2). Morse was so thoroughly in earnest and so free 
from guile, that he was liable to become the victim of 
braggarts and wags. On the authority of Judge Raume, 



33^ Early History of the Fox River Vallev. 

apparently, he gravely informs the secretary of war that 
a little colony of French Jesuits settled at Green Bay 
about the year 1700, "from whom," he says, "descended 
the greater part of the present inhabitants." (Report; 
App. p. 58). His statements of facts not founded on his 
own observation, should be considered in connection 
with his sources of information, or they may be very 
misleading, as he seems to have given credence to some 
rather extraordinary statements. 

(3). These were terms by which they expressed 
their desire for "fire-water." 

(4). In the employment of the American Fur Com- 
pany at the portage was Pierre Paquette, one of the 
most remarkable historical characters of his time, in 
Wisconsin. He was the son of a French trader and a 
Winnebago mother. He is represented as a large, finely 
proportioned, handsome man, whose character entitled 
him to, and gained the respect of all who knew him. 
But his fame rested principally upon his great strength. 
This was so great that all other men seemed alike to him 
in that particular and were but as little children in his 
hands. Hon. Satterlee dark rebates that he saw 
Paquette lift and swing for a minute, apparently without 
2*reat exertion, a pi 1 e driver weighing 2,650 pounds. 
He died in 1836, being shot by a drunken Indian whom 
he had offended. His character and the circumstances 
of his death are detailed in Dark's "Early times at Fort 
Winnebago." VIII., W. H. Coll., 316-319, and drapers 
notes thereto. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

PREPARATIONS FOR THE ERA OF CIVILIZATION. 

While Indiana and Illinois were receiving rapid 
accessions to their white population, a wave of immigra- 
tion reached and settled in the valley of the Fox. But it 
was a unique instance in the settlement of the northwest 
that the first immigration into this valley was more In- 
dians. And thereby hangs a tale. 

With whom the scheme originated does not seem to 
be certain, but there was a grand scheme to transfer the 
remnants of the Six Nations and other remnants of 
tribes in New York and e'sewhere, to the soil which is 
now Wisconsin. When Rev. Jedediah Morse was com- 
missioned to visit all the scattered tribes in the states in 
i8jo, the language of his commission (Morse's report, 
p. 11), indicates that the proposition that he should 
make a tour of inspection and observation among those 
Indians, came from himself. The President approved of 
the proposed arrangement. The scope of his commis- 
sion was to inquire into the physical and moral condi- 



2jS Early History of the Pox River ValUy. 

tion, the numbers of, and territory occupied by, the In- 
dians, etc. There was no hint in the document of any 
scheme of colonizing the Indians, upon the same, or 
contiguous territory, but one can hardly read Morse's 
report without being satisfied that some such scheme 
had been discussed. Morse clearly (and ably) formu- 
lates and advocates such a scheme. (Report pp. 82-90). 
His plan was to reserve the whole territory between 
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, north of the north- 
ern boundary of Illinois and extending north to Lake 
Superior, in which to colonize Indians; to exclude white 
settlers and form an Indian territory and, if possible, 
eventually a state, peopled only by Indians. (Appendix 
p. 314). It is obvious that President Monroe and Secre- 
tary of War Calhoun favored this scheme. 

Morse who was an agent for two societies for spread- 
ing the gospel, was an earnest sincere enthusiast, who 
believed that the Indians might be civilized and Chris- 
tianized, and saved from the extinction which threat- 
ened them. 

He was greatly encouraged by the operations of 
Rev. Eleazer Williams, who, whether he was a Bourbon 
or not, had ambition enough to justify the claim. Will- 
iams was a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal 
church among the Oneidas in New York. He claimed 
to be the author of the scheme for colonizing the In- 
dians in the west. The Oneidas were divided. A part 
had been persuaded to embrace Christianity and were 



Early History of the Fox River Valley 2 ^q 

known as the "first Christian party." Williams, who 
w~as very eloquent in the Mohawk tongue and could 
preach to them without an interpreter, had converted 
the rest, about three-fifths of the tribe, known as the 
"Pagan party," and they became the "second Christian 
party." The first Christian party and the Stockbridges, 
then in New York also, were induced to look favorably 
upon the project of going west and in 1821, a delegation 
headed by Williams, with the consent or approval of the 
government, visited Green Bay. Hon. A. G. Ellis, then 
a young man, residing with Williams, accompanied 
them and what they did is stated in his "Recollections of 
Rev. Eleazer Williams;" in VIII. , Wis. Hist. Coll., 322- 
352. Colonel Bowver had died and there was no Indian 
agent at the Bay when they arrived. The Menomonees 
and Winnebagos, who claimed the country by some 
joint right, or title, had no notice of their coming and 
were, at first, adverse to entering into any negotiations 
for the sale of any part of their lands. Williams secured 
the favor of the French speaking population at Green 
Bav, by holding out the inducement that it would lead 
to the establishment of schools, in which their children 
could be taught, for which they were anxious, and they 
joined in inducing the Indians to consent to the scheme. 
The result was an agreement to sell to the proposed 
emigrants a strip of their lands for $1,500.00, to be paid^ 
in goods. The next year a larger delegation came out 
to pay for the purchase and to negotiate for an addition 



j6o Earty History of the /-ox Rtver bailey, 

to the former concessions. This the Winnebagos flatly 
refused, but after they left the council the Menomonees 
agreed that the emigrants might occupy all their lands 
jointly with themselves. In 1823 and 1824 about one 
hundred and fifty ( hieidas and about the same number 
of Stockbridges emigrated to the Fox River Valley. 
The remnant of the Brothertowns came also, but neither 
the second Christian party of the ( hieidas nor any other 
of the former Iroquois confederacy could be induced to 
consent to remove. Another band of Oneidas came how- 
ever in 1829. So the scheme to colonize Wisconsin with 
Indians failed and resulted only in the addition of a few 
hundreds to the Indian population of the valley of the 
Fox. The promoters of the scheme were actuated prob- 
ably by a variety of motives. Thomas L. Ogden, of 
New York, was at the head of a land company which 
had secured a pre-emption on some of the valuable land 
of the Indians in that state, if they should remove from 
them, and was so earnest in the plan that he furnished 
Williams with some money for his expenses. It has 
been intimated that Secretary Calhoun and perhaps, 
President Monroe, saw in the plan a possibility of re- 
ducing, by one, the number of free states which might 
be formed out of the territory north-west of the Ohio 
River. (1). Williams partially unfolded to Mr. Ellis a 
plan for an Indian empire, in which it seemed that he 
was to be the chief man. This would not necessarily be 
inconsistant with a desire to promote the interests of the 



Early History oj the fox River Va/lev. 26 r 

Indians themselves. Morse was inspired by an earnest 
desire to elevate the Indian race. 

Trouble and disputes afterward arose between the 
emigrants from Mew York and the Menomonees and 
Winnebagos, as to the rights of the former; and by the 
treaty of Butte des Morts, August i ith, 1827, the latter 
agreed to refer the matter to the President of the United 
States and that his decision should be final. Under this, 
commissioners were appointed and the result was that 
the ( hieidas were assigned their present reservation and 
the Stockbridges and Brothertowns were assigned the 
lands on the east side of Lake Winnebago, which they 
have since occupied. September 15th, 1832, by the 
treaty of Rock Island, the Winnebagos ceded to the 
United States all their title and claim to lands in Wis- 
consin. 

The Menomonees had entered into a treaty of peace 
and amity with the United States, in 1817, but they had 
ceded none of their lands, and received no annuities be- 
fore 1831. By an agreement made at Washington, 
February 8th. of that year, they ceded to the United 
States all the lands claimed by them east of Green Bay, 
Fox River and Lake Winnebago, bounded on the south 
by a line drawn south-easterly from the south end of 
Lake Winnebago to the Milwaukee River and down 
that river to its month, and ceding also a tract estimated 
at about 500,000 acres, on the west side of the river and 
Green Bay, such part thereof as the President might 



262 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

direct to "be set apart as a home to the several tribes of 
the New York Indians, who may remove to and settle 
upon the same, within three years from the date of this 
agreement." The present Oneida reservation is a por- 
tion of this cession. It seems that the project of remov- 
ing- the other New York Indians to Wisconsin was not 
yet abandoned. The Senate ratified this agreement and 
an amendment made by a further agreement on the 17th 
of February, with a proviso for the reservation of three 
townships on the east side of Take Winnebago two for 
the Stockbridge and Mimsee tribes and one for the 
Brothertowns. These were included in the cession first 
mentioned, however. Under this agreement farmers, 
blacksmiths and school teachers were to be located 
among the Menomonees and a saw mill and grist mill 
erected for their use on the Fox River, which was after- 
ward done. This treaty was not ratified by the Senate 
until June 25th, 1832. By the treaty of Green Bay, 
October 27th, 1832. a further cession of 200,000 acres 
was added to the cession for the benefit of the New York 
Indians. It is unnecessary to follow the details of the 
various cessions by the Menomonees. In 1852 they 
finally removed from the valley of the Fox to their pres- 
ent reservation at Keshena on the upper Wolf River and 
this valley was left clear of all the original occupants, to 
the white men and Indians imported from New York. 

The Menomonees are the only tribe, whom the first 
explorers found in Wisconsin who still remain. Part of 



Early History of the Fox River Valley. 263 

the Chippewas are still in the state. The Menomonees 
alone, always performed their treaty obligations and 
were never guilty of treachery toward their white 
friends. 

Many years ago the Brothertowns abandoned their 
tribal organization, had their lands divided in severalty 
and became citizens of the United States. A portion of 
the Stockbridges did the same. Those of them who re- 
tained their tribal organization, occupy a small reserva- 
tion adjoining that of the Menomonees. 

Nearly three centuries ago. Samuel de Champlain 
had shadowy visions of a great Indian empire in the New 
World, owning allegiance to, and under the rule of, the 
King of France. Half a century later, the early Jesuit 
missionaries in New France, indulged in visions, still 
more shadow}-, of a great Theocracy among the wild 
tribes of the forests, in which the natives should be ruled 
by the Church and the Church should be ruled by the 
Jesuits. The less ambitious dream of Jedediah Morse, 
of a territory, (perhaps a state), inhabited by civilized 
and Christianized Indians, industrious thriving and 
happy, protected by the law from the demoralizing in- 
trusion of white settlers, was but little less shadowy and 
about equally impossible of fulfillment, while the am- 
bitious plan of Eleazer Williams was, manifestly, but 
"the baseless fabric of a vision." (2). With the excep- 
tion of some individuals and, in some instances, small 
bands or remnants of tribes, exceptions sufficient to fur- 



2b4 Early History of the Fox A'tver Valley. 

nish some evidence of a rule, the success which has at- 
tended the efforts hitherto made, to civilize the natives 
does not seem to justify the expectation that the process 
of decrease among the aborigines will cease. It does 
not seem probable that, as a race, they can ever be in- 
duced to "take up the white man's burden" with the 
energy, thrift and industry, without which it is a hard 
burden to bear. Their state is a sad one and philan- 
thropists bemoan it and often criticise the policy of the 
government toward them. But their condition was 
always sad. In the "hunter" state, before the civilized 
hordes following the star of empire on its westward way. 
wanted their hunting grounds, their pride and glory 
were in hunting each other. They burned at the stake, 
slaughtered, scalped, occasionally even cooked and ate, 
each other. Powerful tribes like the Mascoutins, 
dwindled away and disappeared, in half a century. 
They may have been happier. It is difficult to believe 
that they were in a more enviable condition than they 
are now. (3). 



NOTES TO CHAPTER XXIV. 

(1). According to Hon. C. C. Trowbridge, the de- 
sire of the government was, to see the remnants of the 
eastern tribes "comfortably settled in some fertile spot, 
so far awav from the haunts of the white man that they 



Early History of the Fox Rtver Valley . j6j 

would never be disturbed." Green Bay, or the country 
of the Menomonees in its vicinity, it seems was thought 
to be the place where the requisite isolation could be 
found. VII.. W. II. Coll., i [3. 

(2). The ''lost Dauphin" controversy is not within 
the scope of this work. But I have an item to add to the 
Fleazer Williams literature, i heard often about him in 
my boyhood. When my father was a very young man. 
he and Eleazer Wiliams who was about the same age, 
were inmates, during one winter, of the family of one 
Colonel Williams, who lived in Charlotte, Yt., who was 
supposed to be a re'ation, in some degree, of the latter. 
From mv earliest recollection. I often heard my father 
speak of their association that winter. lie described 
Eleazer Williams as a good looking young man rather 
florid and looking, in his. opinion much more like a 
Canadian Frenchman than like an Indian, lie was en- 
gaged then in translating the Xew Testament into the 
Oneida, or Mohawk language. My father used to re- 
late with great glee, a visit which the three made to Ver- 
gennes. that winter. There it became rumored among 
the boys that there was an Indian at the tavern where 
thev stopped. Several boys gathered around peering 
into the windows, to see the unusual sight. Finally they 
invaded the hall and opened the door slightly to "peek" 
in. They could hear the boys inquiring in loud whis- 
pers, "Which is the Indian? Which is the Indian?" It 
seemed that they finally concluded that the Colonel, who 
was of a dark complexion, was the Indian. 



266 Early History of the Fox River Valley. 

When the ( )neidas were preparing to remove to 
Wisconsin, Eleazer Williams wrote to my father, who 
was a skilled carpenter and joiner, asking- him to accom- 
pany them, setting- forth the advantages which the new 
country offered, in such glowing terms that my father 
was strongly inclined to go. My mother however ob- 
jected so strenuously that he abandoned the idea. This 
was two years before my birth. Sit 1 missed the hone* 
of being a native of Wisconsin. 

(\). The political changes of this valley have been 
the same as those of the state, which have been often 
written, in the state histories. In an article in the "Wis- 
consin State Register" of December 10th. [898. lion 
A. J. Turner, of Portage, describes the vicissitudes of 
citizenship to which an "old settler" of antediluvian 
longevity might have been subject, at that place. 

From the landing of Juan Ponce de Leon in Florida, 
in [512, till (.artier entered the St. Lawrence River, in 
i 534. Spain claimed undisputed jurisdiction of the North 
American continent. But, from the latter date, the 
King of France claimed jurisdiction of everything west 
of Carrier's discoveries. From [671, when St. Lussen 
took formal possession of Ihe great West at Sault St. 
Marie, he wou'd have been an undoubted citizen of New 
France. When La Sale took formal possession, in the 
name of the King of France of all the country watered 
by the Mississippi and its tributaries, in [682, he gave it 
the name of Louisiana. If the "old settler lived on the 



/ Early History of the Fox River Valley. j6f 

bank of the Wisconsin River, he would have been in the 
territory in which La Salle claimed jurisdiction, or, at 
least, to be the only licensed trader. Perhaps if he lived 
east of the line of "marks and crosses" on the trees, 
which Hennapin made, he would not have been in- 
eluded. But no established government of Louisiana 
ever claimed jurisdiction of him. In 1703 his allegiance 
was transferred to the crown of England. Although he 
would have been within the treat}- limits of the United 
States from 1782. he would have continued to be an 
actual subject of Great Britain until 1815, since which 
time he would have recognized the "Star Spangled Ban- 
ner" as the ikm of his country. 



INDEX. 

Algonquin Tribes — Many driven west and north of Lake Huron, by 
Iroquois. 23. 

Alloeuz. Father Claude — First missionary in Wisconsin, 25. Arrives 
at Chagouamigong, Oct. 1, 1665, 25. Found large village com- 
posed of seven different nations. 26. Established Mission of 
the Holy Ghost, 26. At the Mission of the Holy Ghost, 26-27. 
Sent to Green Bay, 27. His voyage to Green Bay, 27-28. Perils 
of the voyage. 28. Reached Green Bay, Dec. 2, 1669. 28. Cele- 
brated first mass there Dee. 3, 1669, 28. Had difficulty in 
obtaining maintenance for winter, 32. Found a village includ- 
ing members of several tribes, "more than commonly bar- 
barous," 31-32. Exploration of Fox and Wolf River. 33 et. seq. 
Winter visit to Foxes in 1671, 40. First visit to Mascoutins in 
1670, M et. seq. Reception by Mascoutins and Miamis, 45. 
Visited Kickapoos May, 1, 1670. 46. Return to Sault Ste. Marie, 
17. Returns to Green Bay with Dablon, 47. Found trouble be- 
tween traders and Indians, 47. Held council with Indians, 
47-48. Second visit to Mascoutins and Miamis. with Dablon, 48 
et. seq. Throw Indian idol into river. 49. Displays picture of 
last judgment, to Mascoutins, 50, 51. And Dablon, prayer of 
Miami Chief to. 51. Receives information of Mississippi River, 
52. Remarkable speech of, to Indians at Sault Ste. Marie, 60-61. 
Winter visit to the Outagamis, 63. Sent to Illinois, 94. Peri- 
lous voyage. 94-96. Returned to Wisconsin. 96. Relations with 
La Salle. 97-107. 

Andre, Father Louis — Perilous winter trip of. 65. Curious manner 
of attacking Indian superstition. 65. 

Barth. Laurent —First settler at the Portage, 227-228. 

Brandy -Sale of, to Indians. 90, 97 note. 

Campbell. John— at the Portage, 229. 

Canoes (bark) — Outagamis had none, 37. Mascoutins had none, 50. 
Used exclusively by French in their commerce. 156. Descrip- 
tion of. 156. 

Carver, Jonathan— Arrived at Green Bay, 207. The Carver Grant, 
207. Visits vVinnebagos at Doty's Island. 207. Head Chief or 



Index . H 

Queen there, 20S. Was the DeKaury, 208. Carver kissed the 

Queen, 20V. Origin and dialect of the Winnebagos. 208. His 

description of Sauk village. 209. Found the Sauks slave tra- 
ders. 209. 

"Coureurs do bois*' — At Green Bay in 1.669, 2^-29. Their character, 
29. 30, 31, 100. Their conduct among Indians, 99. Married 
squaws 101. 

Dablon, Father Claude -Visits Green Bay with Allouez, 47. Descrip- 
tion of Fox River Valley, 50. 

PeLignery — Held council with Foxes, Sauks and Winnebagos at 
Green Bay, 136. Led expedition against Foxes. 138. Failure of 
his expedition, 141. His plan and expectations, 142. 

Dickson. Robert -His influence, 231. Belated in fall of 1813, 234. 
La we and Grignon his lieutenants, 234. Frozen in at Bake Win- 
nebago, 285. His winter experience there, 235 et. seq. Belated 
in fall of 1814, 211. Frozen in at Garlic Island on Lake Winne- 
abgo, 241. Released by January thaw. 241-243. note. Continued 
intercourse with Indians. 249 

Du Lhut — Fur trader, 101. 

English Colonies— English policy towards, 210. Conditions in, 211. 

Errors, Historical— Causes of, 1. 7. Instances of. 2-9. 

Fox Indians- (See Outagamis) — Tampered with by English agents, 
113. Perrot's trouble with them, 110. Boasted that they had 
closed the Fox-Wis< onsin route, 116. Appear at Detroit in 
force, in 1712. 120 et. seq. Their conduct there, 127. Attacked 
and captured with Mascoutin allies by friendly Indians, 128-129. 
Escape of about one hundred, 129. Attacked the Illinois 1714, 
130. Constant wars with other tribes, 131. Levied tribute on 
commerce, of the Fox River. 132. De Louvigny's expedition 
against, 132-133. Their surrender, 133. Lenient terms of peace, 
134. Their disregard of terms of surrender. 134-135. Expedi- 
tion against the Illinois. 135. Council with De Lignery at Green 
Bay. 136. Their promises, 136. Hesitation of the French to 
attack, 136-137. Expedition of De Lignery. 137 et. seq. Loca- 
tion of village destroyed by De Lignery, 140-141. Expulsion 
from Fox River Valley, 145 et. seq. Indian traditions concern- 
ing, 145. Most reliable source of information, 146-147. Uncer- 
tainty as to time, 147-148. Marin's expedition against, 143 et. 
seq. Slaughter of, at Little Butte Des Morts, 150. Battle with 
at "Grignon place." 150-151. Winter expedition against, 151. 



in Index. 

Probable time of expulsion. 152-155. Location of battle at "Grig- 
non place," 255, note 2. Not exterminated, 155, note 3. Marin's 
expedition used canoes, 155, note 4 . 

Fox and Wisconsin route — Early commerce on, 104. Rendered use- 
less by hostility of the Foxe's in 1689, 117. Reasons for French 
war against them, 118. Their original location, 118-119. Their 

character as a tribe 119-120. Perils of travel, 130-131. Tradition of 
battle with, at Butte des Morts, 1 12. 

Fur Trade— Principal business of the French ,100. At military 
posts. 109, n. 1. Struggle between French and English for, 117, 
123. Policy of the French, 124, et. seq. American factory sys- 
tem at. Green Pay, 245. American Fur Company at Green Bay. 
245. Failure of factory system, 250. 

Gautier de Verville — Nephew of Charles de Langlarle, 220. note 1. 
His Curious journal, 220, note 1. 

Green Bav — Frenchman there before Allouez. ^9. French garrisons 
at, 1 H. No batteau there until English occupation, 156. Great 
profits of Marin at early, in the war. 187. Grant to M. 
Rigaud and Alrae. de Vaudreuil of the fort at, with an extensive 
territory. 187-188, English garrison and fort, 192-193. Lieu- 
tenant Gorrell in command, 193. His character, 193. Point of 
supply for many tribes, 194. Gorrell's treatment of Indians, 
194-195. Gorrell ordered to L'Arbor Croche, 204. Dakotahs 
notified Fox River tribes not to molest the English, 204-5. Gor- 
rell escorted by ninety Menominee warriors, 205. No English 
garrison after Gorrell left, 206. Not garrisoned by either Eng- 
lish or Americans, 222. Only assertion of American jurisdic- 
tion, appointment of Chas. Raume, as justice of the peace, 222. 
No clergyman or magistrate to perform marriage ceremony, 
222. No need for courts, lawyers or officers of the law, 222. 
Xo doctors. 222. Population in 1785, 222-223. Some accessions 
from 1791. 223. Population at beginning of war of 1812, 223. 
Character of population, 223-224. How trade with Indians con- 
ducted, 224. Character of early population, 225, 230. Popula- 
tion of, 230 note. Demand on for supplies for British, 236-237. 
Effect of, 244. Arrival of American garrison, 245-246. At the 
time of American occupation, 247. Population in 1818, 247. 
Americans at, in 1820, 253. In 1822, 253. In 1824, 253. 

Griffon— First sailing vessel on upper lakes, 102. Lost with cargo 
of furs. 103. 

Hennapin, Father Louis— His adventures on the Mississippi, 104. 
Returned by Fox and Wisconsin route, 104. His unreliability, 
105. 



Index. iv 

Hurons —Driven west by Ironquois, 23. Bands of them in Wiscon- 
sin, 23. Allouez found village of, on Lake Superior, 26. 

kid i a ns— Method of Fishing, 34. Their morals. L09-110, note, 2. 
Unrecorded battles in Fox River Valley, 160-161. Ambition for 
scalps, 161. Chiefs had no real authority, 162. Savage nature 
of. 162. Christian converts of the Jesuits, 162. Jesuit plan of a 
Theocracy, 162. Failure of labors of Jesuits, 163. Changes in 
location of tribes, 3 88-189. Expectation, that French would re- 
turn and drive out the English, 193. Population of Fox River 
Valley in 1820. 251. Condition of, 252. Their love of fire water, 
252. American policy toward, 252, 254. Depredations of Dixon's 
allies at Green Bay, 225 note. Schemes in relation to, 263. 
Desire of government as to, 265. 

Jesuits — Establish mission among Hurons, 22. Nicolet accom- 
panies, 22. Hurons driven out by Iroquois and mission de- 
stroyed, 23. Causes which led to missions in Wisconsin, 22-26. 
Supposed by Indians to have supernatural power, 51-53. 
Changed conduct of Indians toward, and cause, 54. Their his- 
tory and peculiarities, 61-62. Missions of, 1671, 1672, 1673, 63. 
Manner of work among Indians, 64, 89. Results of their labors, 
88. Number of baptisms by. 88-89. Mostly of dying persons, 89. 
Their work among Indians. 90. Erect church at De Pere, 90. 
Their plans, 107-108. Their missions on Fox' and Wolf Rivers 
abandoned. 114. Reasons of failure to convert Indians, 91. 
Reticence as to other people, 98-99. Burn their own church at 
Mackinaw, 125. Their plan, 162-163. Ottawa tradition of 
effects, 164, note 1. 

Joliet, Louis — Selected to explore Mississippi River, 67. Lost his 
manuscripts, books and papers, 71. 

Kickapoos — Location of in 1670, 46. Their character, 46. 

Langlade, Charles Michael de— Trading at Green Bay, 170. His 
parentage and birth, 170-171. His training, 171-172. Commis- 
sioned as ensign in French marines, 172. Interpretation of his 
Indian name, 175, note 1. Goes to trie assistance of Fort 
Duquesne with large force of Indians and bushrangers, 177-178. 
Planned and executed the defeat of Braddock, 178 et. seq. Eng- 
lish retreat over the mountains, 182. Continued in French ser- 
vice until fall of Quebec, 182-183. Ambushed detachment of 
Wolf's army, 183. Failed because French would not attack, 183-' 
184. At the final battle on the plains of Abraham, 185. Instance 
of his coolness, 185-186. Commissioned as lieutenant in 1760, 
186. Superintendent of the Indian nations of the upper coun- 
try, 186. His honesty, 190, note 2. English superintendent of 



"V Index. 

Indians in the Green Bay district, 206. Joined Burgoyne's army 
with a large force of Indians, 213-214. Testimony of Anbury 
and Burgoyne that he planned and executed the defeat of Brad- 
dock. 214. Soon Left Burgoyne's army, 214-215. Raised Indian 
force to join English at Vincennes, 217. Learned at St. Joseph 
of Clark's success and returned home, 217. Occupied Prairie du 
Chien with small force in 1780, 217. Removed furs and guard 
to Mackinaw five days before Clark's forces reached there, 218, 
Death of his father in 1771, 218. 

La Salle — His unlawful trade with Indians. 102. His plans, 108. 
His character, 109. Makes trouble in Fox River Valley. 111-112. 

Leeuyer. John — Settled at the Portage, 228. 

Mackinaw— He Langlade at, 198. Warned Captain Etherington of 
danger, 198. Etherington's infatuation, 198. Attack and Massa- 
cre of garrison by Chippewas, 199-200. Etherington and Lieu- 
tenant Leslie made prisoners, 200. Conduct of De Langlade, 
200. Chippewas prepare to burn Etherington and Leslie at 
stake. 200. Rescued by De Langlade, 200. Escape of Alexander 
Henry, 201. Chippewas became very uneasy and refused to join 
Pontiac at Detroit, 203. Menominee tradition, 204. Ethering- ,- 
ton turned over command of the fort to Charles de Langlade. 
205. Re -garrisoned by English, 213. Occupied by an American 
garrison in 1790. 220, 221. British attack on, 233-234. American 
expedition against, 240. 

Maps — Showing location of Mascoutins, 70. Of Jesuit Fathers, 70, 
74. of Marquette. 70, 75. Of Joliet, 70, 76. Joliet locates coun- 
try of the Mascoutins around Rush Lake, 82. 

Marquette. Father James — Succeeded Allouez at the Mission of the 
Holy Ghost in 1069. 27. Abandoned mission on Lake Superior 
in 1671, 66. Removed with Hurons to Point St. Ignace, 67. 
Anxious to establish missions among the Illinois, 67. Appointed 
to accompany Joliet to explore the Mississippi, 67. Their 
voyage, 67 et. seq. Reached village of Mascoutins June 7, 1763, 
68. Remained there until June 10, 68. Reached the mouth of 
Wisconsin River June 17, 68. Returns from voyage with im- 
paired health, 91. Prepares his report, 92. Returns to Illinois, 
92. His sickness and death, 92-93. At mission of St. Francis 
Xavier. 91-92. Bones removed to St. Ignace, 93. 

Mascoutins— Visited by Nicollet in 1634, 15, 17. Location of their 
village, 70 et. seq. Sources of information, 70, 71. Maps show- 
ing location of, 70. Allovez description of. 73. Dablon's descrip- 
tion of. 73. Marquette's description, 74. Where situated. 83. 



vi Index. 

Mt. Tom not location, 84, note 2. Join Foxes in expedition to 
Detroit in 1712, 126 Only allies of the Foxes, 135. Disappear 
from history, 189. 

Mass — First said in Wisconsin by Allouez at Chegoimagon in 1665, 
32, note 1. First ma~s at Oshkosh, 35. 

Membre, Father — At Green Bay, 105. 

Menard, Father Rene — Visits Algonquins on Lake Superior, 24. His 
experience among them, 24. Attempts to reach a band of 
Hurons in Wisconsin, in 1661, 24, 25. Lost and his fate un- 
known. 25. Did not say mass in Wisconsin, 32, notes 1. Was 
at Kewenaw Bay in Michigan, 32, note 1. 

Menominees — Wanton attack upon by De Lignery's forces, 139. 
Their character, 197-198. Friendly to both French and English, 
197. Did not join in Pontiac's conspiracy, 203. With British 
army, 234. Faithful to British allies. 244-245. Cession of lands 
by, 261-262. Agreement of the United States with. 262. Re- 
moved from Fox River Valley, 262. Their fidelity, 263. 

Meyers, P. F. — Ruins of Indian village discovered by, 42, note 3. 

Miamis — Hennapin's statement of their former location, 41, notes 1. 
Regal state of chief, 52. Former residence of on Lakes Winne- 
bago and Butte des Morts, 104-105. 

Mills — First saw and grist mill, 230. 

Morse, Rev. Jedediah — Commissioned to visit scattered tribes of 
Indians, 249. At Green Bay. 249 et. seq. His report, 249-250. 
His character and report, 256 note. His commission, 257-258. 
His scheme, 258. 

Nicolet, Jean — First white man to visit Fox River Falley, 10. 
Account oL 10-17. 

Oneidas — Delegation visits Wisconsin, 259. Purchase lands near 
Green Bay, 260. Immigration of, 260. 

Outagamis — (See Fox Indians) — Allouez' first visit to, 36 et. seq. 
Character of, 37. Lodges captured by Senecas, 37. Location of 
in 1670, 38 et. seq. Claimed country around Detroit in 1712, 41, 
notes 2. Traders afraid to visit them, 63. Description of their 
village, 63-64. Change of location to Fox River, 115. Their 
character, 121 et. seq. 

Paquette, Pierre — His character and strength, 256, notes 4. 



Index. i:i 

Perrot, Nicholas — At Green Bay when Allouez arrived, 56. Brief 
account of, E7. His influence among the Indians, 101. Raised 
Indian force for La Barre's expedition, 103. Appointed to com- 
mand at Green Bay and in the west. 112. His authority, 113. 
His loss when church at De Pere was burned, 114. His present 
to Mission of St. Francis Xavier, 115. Led Indians on expedi 
tion against the Senecas 16S7, 116. Wrought a miracle among 
Sioux, 117. 

Pontiac — His character, 196. His conspiracy, 196. Plan to destroy 
the post and garrison at Green Bay, 197. Prevented by Carron 
Chief of the Menomonees, 197. Besieged Detroit, 198. Mur- 
dered by Illinois Indians, 209-210. Resentment and revenge of 
other tribes, 210. 

Portage — Description of, 226-227. Winnebago tariff on commerce 
254. Erection of Fort Winnebago, 254. 

Prairie du Chien — Occupied by Americans, 237. British expeditior 
against, 238. Capture of by British, 239. American attack re 
pulsed, 240-241. 

Raddisson and Grosilliers — Visit the Fox River Valley in 1658, 17-18 
Their adventures, 17-20. Probably reached the Mississippi, 19 

Ribourde, Father Gabriel — Murdered by Kickapoos, 106. 

Sauk Indians — Their relation to the Foxes and French, 157. Theii 
location in 1670. 157. At Green Bay in 1746, 157-158. Cause o: 

French attack upon them, 158-159. Attack upon and expulsion, 159 
Removal to Sauk prairie, 159. Subsequent union with Foxes 
160. 

Suit Ste. Marie — Council with Indians at 1671, 58 et. seq. 

St. Francis Xavier,— (Mission) — Moved from Green Bay to De Pere 
64. Church burned by Indians in 1687, by tribes among whon 
Allouez had labored. 114. Father Chardon. last missionar: 
there departed with De Lignery's forces, 1728, 144. 

St. Lussen — At Sault Ste. Marie, 59. Takes possession of the coim 
try in name of King of France, 59. 

St. Marie— "Marquette's Well," 84-85. Chapel at, 84-85 note. Legem 
that Marquette had Mission there, 86. 

Tontv, Henri de— La Salle's lieutenant, 101. At Green Bay, 105-10e 



yiii Index. 

Wars — Between English and French, 165. Disputed boundaries, 165 
et. seq. English policy of limiting settlements, 165. French 
policy, 165. Mission of George Washington to Fort La Boeuf, 
166. Attempt of Washington to erect a fort at Pittsburg, 167. 
His orders. 167. Fort captured by French, 167. Washington's 
expedition, 168. Capture of Ft. Necessity by French, 169. Brad- 
dock sent to Virginia with two regiments, 170. Reasons for 
attack on Pickawillany, 173. Attack and capture by De Lang- 
lade and Indians in 1752, 174. War not declared until 1756, 177. 
"Braddock's Defeat" was in July, 1755, 177. Causes of the 
French loss of Canada. 184-185. Massacre at Fort William 
Henry not by De Langlade's Indians, 189, note 1. By Chris- 
tian Abenaki, 189, note 1. Manner of French occupation of 
territory, 191-192. Surrender of Canada to English, 192. 

W r ars between England and the United States — Prelude to revolu- 
tion, 212-213. Royal proclamation, 212. Quebec Act, 213. Cap- 
ture of Illinois posts by Col. Clark, 215-216. Recapture of Vin- 
cennes by English, 216. Recapture by Clark, 216-217. Intrigue 
and hopes of Spain, 219, 220, note 1. Close to the revolution, 
219. Boundary of the United States, 219. England retained 
possession of the northwestern posts until after Jay's treaty, 
219-221. Indian wars to restrict American occupation to the 
line of the Ohio River, encouraged by the English, 222. 

Williams, Rev. Eleazer — His plans. 258-260. Anecdote of, 266 note. 

Winnebagoes — Origin of their name, 20, note 1 . Increase and 

spreading out of, 225-226. With British army, 234. Their 

hatred of the Americans, 248-249. Ceded their lands to the 
United States, 261. 

Winnebago Lake — Uninhabited in 1670, 34. Dimensions of, 35. 



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